Works

m

THE

SKETCH BOOK

OF

GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT?.

" I have no wife, nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere
spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play
their parts, which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a
common theatre or scene." — BURTON.

Eefriseti lEtoitfon.

NEW YORK : 46 EAST 14TH STREET.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

BOSTON": 100 PURCHASE STREET.

THE SKETCH-BOOK.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION , v

ADVERTISEMENTS TO THE FIRST AMERICAN AND ENGLISH EDITIONS . . . xi

THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF 5

THE VOYAGE 9

ROSCOE 14

THE WIFE 20

Rip VAN WINKLE 27

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA 41

RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND 49

THE BROKEN HEART 55

THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING 59

A ROYAL POET 65

THE COUNTRY CHURCH 77

THE WIDOW AND HER SON 81

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP 87

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 96

RURAL FUNERALS 105

THE INN KITCHEN 115

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM 117

WESTMINSTER ABBEY • 130

CHRISTMAS 139

THE STAGE-COACH 144

CHRISTMAS EVE 149

CHRISTMAS DAY 159

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER . 170

LITTLE BRITAIN 182

STRATFORD-ON-AVON 194

TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER 210

PHILIP OF POKANOKET 219

JOHN BULL 233

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE 242

THE ANGLER 250

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 258

L'ENVOY 285

A SUNDAY IN LONDON 287

LONDON ANTIQUES 289

APPENDIX 295

iii

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.

THE following papers, with two exceptions, were written in
England, and formed but part of an intended series for which
I had made notes and memorandums. Before I could mature
a plan, however, circumstances compelled me to send them
piecemeal to the United States, where they were published
from time to time in portions or numbers. It was not my in-
tention to publish them in England, being conscious that
much of their contents could be interesting only to American
readers, and, in truth, being deterred by the severity with
which American productions had been treated by the British
press.

By the time the contents of the first volume had appeared
in this occasional manner, they began to find their way across
the Atlantic, and to be inserted, with many kind encomiums, in
the London Literary Gazette. It was said, also, that a London
bookseller intended to publish them in a collective form. I
determined, therefore, to bring them forward myself, that they
might at least have the benefit of my superintendence and
revision. I accordingly took the printed numbers which I
had received from the United States, to Mr. John Murray,
the eminent publisher, from whom I had already received
friendly attentions, and left them with him for examination,
informing him that should he be inclined to bring them before
the public, I had materials enough on hand for a second vol-
ume. Several days having elapsed without any communica-
tion from Mr. Murray, I addressed a note to him in which I
construed his silence into a tacit rejection of my work, and
begged that the numbers I had left with him might be returned
to me. The following was his reply :

MY DEAR SIR : I entreat you to believe that I feel truly
obliged by your kind intentions towards me, and that I enter-
tain the most unfeigned respect for your most tasteful talents.
My house is completely filled with work-people at this time,
and I have only an office to transact business in ; and yester-

yi PREFACE TO THE EEVISED EDITION.

day I was wholly occupied, or I should have done myself the
pleasure of seeing you.

If it would not suit me to engage in the publication of your
present work, it is only because I do not see that scope in the
nature of it which would enable me to make those satisfactory
accounts between us, without which I really feel no satisfaction
in engaging — but I will do all I can to promote their circu-
lation, and shall be most ready to attend to any future, plan
of yours.

With much regard, I remain, dear sir,

Your faithful servant,

JOHN MURRAY.

This was disheartening, and might have deterred me from
any further prosecution of the matter, had the question of
republication in Great Britain rested entirely with me ; but
I apprehended the appearance of a spurious edition. I now
thought of Mr. Archibald Constable as publisher, having been
treated by him with much hospitality during a visit to Edin-
burgh ; but first I determined to submit my work to Sir
Walter (then Mr.) Scott, being encouraged to do so by the
cordial reception I had experienced from him at Abbotsford
a few years previously, and by the favorable opinion he had
expressed to others of my earlier writings. I accordingly
sent him the printed numbers of the Sketch Book in a parcel
by coach, and at the same time wrote to him, hinting that
since I had had the pleasure of partaking of his hospitality, a
reverse had taken place in my affairs which made the success-
ful exercise of my pen all-important to me ; I begged him,
therefore, to look over the literary articles I had forwarded
to him, and, if he thought they would bear European republi-
cation, to ascertain whether Mr. Constable would be inclined
to be the publisher.

The parcel containing my work went by coach to Scott's
address in Edinburgh ; the letter went by mail to his resi-
dence in the country. By the very first post I received a
reply, before he had seen my work.

" I was down at Kelso," said he, " when your letter reached
Abbotsford. I am now on my way to town, and will con-
verse with Constable, and do all in my power to forward your
views — I assure you nothing will give me more pleasure."

The hint, however, about a reverse of fortune had struck
the quick apprehension of Scott, and, with that practical and
efficient good will which belonged to his nature, he had already

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. vii

devised a way of aiding me. A weekly periodical, he went on
to inform me, was about to be set up in Edinburgh, supported
by the most respectable talents, and amply furnished with all
the necessary information. The appointment of the editor,
for which ample funds were provided, would be five hundred
pounds sterling a year, with the reasonable prospect of further
advantages. This situation, being apparently at his disposal,
he frankly offered to me. The work, however, he intimated,
was to have somewhat of a political bearing, and he expressed
an apprehension that the tone it was desired to adopt might
not suit me. " Yet I risk the question," added he, " because I
know no man so well qualified for this important task, and
perhaps because it will necessarily bring you to Edinburgh.
If my proposal does not suit, you need only keep the matter
secret and there is no harm done. ' And for my love I pray
you wrong me not.' If on the contrary you think it could be
made to suit you, let me know as soon as possible, addressing
Castle street, Edinburgh."

In a postscript, written from Edinburgh, he adds, " I am
just come here, and have glanced over the Sketch Book. • It
is positively beautiful, and increases my desire to crimp you,
if it be possible. Some difficulties there always are in man-
aging such a matter, especially at the outset ; but we will
obviate them as much as we possibly can."

The following is from an imperfect draught of my reply,
which underwent some modifications in the copy sent :

" I cannot express how much I am gratified by your letter.
I had begun to feel as if I had taken an unwarrantable liberty ;
but, somehow or other, there is a genial sunshine about you
that warms every creeping thing into heart and confidence.
Your literary proposal both surprises and flatters me, as
it evinces a much higher opinion of my talents than I have
myself."

I then went on to explain that I found myself peculiarly
unfitted for the situation offered to me, not merely by my
political opinions, but by the very constitution and habits of
my mind. " My whole course of life," I observed, " has been
desultory, and I am unfitted for any periodically recurring
task, or any stipulated labor of body or mind. I have no com-
mand of my talents, such as they are, and have to watch the
varyings of my mind as I would those of a weathercock.
Practice and training may bring me more into rule ; but at
present I am as useless for regular service as one of my own
country Indians or a Don Cossack,

yiii PEE FACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.

" I must, therefore, keep on pretty much as I have begun-,
writing when I can, not when I would. I shall occasionally
shift my residence and write whatever is suggested by objects
before me, or whatever rises in my imagination ; and hope to
write better and more copiously by and by.

« I am playing the egotist, but I know no better way oi
answering your proposal than by showing what a very good-
for-nothing kind of being I am. Should Mr. Constable feel
inclined to make a bargain for the wares I have on hand, he
will encourage me to further enterprise ; and it will be some-
thing like trading with a gypsy for the fruits of his prowlmgs,
who may at one time have nothing but a wooden bowl to offer,
and at another time a silver tankard."

In' reply, Scott expressed regret, but not surprise, at my
declining what might have proved a troublesome duty. He
then recurred to the original subject of our correspondence ;
entered into a detail of the various terms upon which arrange-
ments were made between authors and booksellers, that I
might take my choice ; expressing the most encouraging con-
fidence of the success of my work, and of previous works
which I had produced in America. " I did no more," added
he, " than open the trenches with Constable ; but I am sure
if you will take the trouble to write to him, you will find him
disposed to treat your overtures with every degree of atten-
tion. Or, if you think it of consequence in the first place to
see me, I shall be in London in the course of a month, and
whatever my experience can command is most heartily at
your command. But I can add little to what I have said
above, except my earnest recommendation to Constable to
enter into the negotiation." l

1 I cannot avoid subjoining in a note a succeeding paragraph of Scott's
letter, which, though it does not relate to the main subject of our corre-
spondence, was too characteristic to be omitted. Some time previously
I had sent Miss Sophia Scott small duodecimo American editions of her
father's poems published in Edinburgh in quarto volumes; showing the
;' nigromancy " of the American press, by which a quart of wine is con-
jured into a pint bottle. Scott observes : " In my hurry, I have not
thanked you in Sophia's name for the kind attention which furnished her
with the American volumes. I am not quite sure I can add my own,
since you have made her acquainted with much more of papa's folly than
she would ever otherwise have learned ; for I had taken special care they
should never see any of those things during their earlier years. I think
I told you that Walter is sweeping the firmament with a feather like a
maypole and indenting the pavement with a sword like a scythe — in
other words, he has become a whiskered hussar in the 18th Dragoons."

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. ix

Before the receipt of this most obliging letter, however, I
had determined to look to no leading bookseller for a launch,
but to throw my work before the public at my own risk, and
let it sink or swim according to its merits. I wrote to that
effect to Scott, arid soon received a reply :

" I observe with pleasure that you are going to come forth
in Britain. It is certainly not the very best way to publish
on one's own accompt; for the booksellers set their face
against the circulation of such works as do not pay an amaz-
ing toll to themselves. But they have lost the art of alto-
gether damming up the road in such cases between the author
and the public, which they were once able to do as effectually
as Diabolus in John Bunyan's Holy War closed up the win-
dows of my Lord Understanding's mansion. I am sure of
one thing, that you have only to be known to the British pub-
lic to be admired by them, and I would not say so unless I
really was of that opinion.

" If you ever see a witty but rather local publication called
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, you will find some notice
of your works in the last number : the author is a friend of
mine, to whom I have introduced you in your literary capacity.
His name is Lockhart, a young man of very considerable talent,
and who will soon be intimately connected with my family.
My faithful friend Knickerbocker is to be next examined and
illustrated. Constable was extremely willing to enter into
consideration of a treaty for your works, but I foresee will be
still more so when

Your name is up, and may go
From Toledo to Madrid.

And that will soon be the case. I trust to be in

London about the middle of the month, and promise myself
great pleasure in once again shaking you by the hand."

The first volume of the Sketch Book was put to press in
London, as I had resolved, at my own risk, by a bookseller
unknown to fame, and without any of the usual arts by which
a work is trumpeted into notice. Still some attention had
been called to it by the extracts which had previously appeared
in the Literary Gazette, and by the kind word spoken by the
editor of that periodical, and it was getting into fair circu-
lation, when my worthy bookseller failed before the first
month was over, and the sale was interrupted.

At this juncture Scott arrived in London. I called to him
for help, as I was sticking in the mire, and, more propitious

X PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.

than Hercules, he put his own shoulder to the wheel. Through
his favorable representations, Murray was quickly induced to
undertake the future publication of the work which he had
previously declined. A further edition of the first volume
was struck off and the second volume was put to press, and
from that time Murray became my publisher, conducting him-
self in all his dealings with that fair, open, and liberal spirit
which had obtained for him the well-merited appellation of
the Prince of Booksellers.

Thus, under the kind and cordial auspices of Sir Walter
Scott, I began my literary career in Europe ; and I feel that
I am but discharging, in a trifling degree, my debt of gratitude
to the memory of that golden-hearted man in acknowledging
my obligations to him. But who of his literary contempo-
raries ever applied to him for aid or counsel that did not ex-
perience the most prompt, generous, and effectual assistance ?

W. I.

SUNNYSIDE, 1848.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION,

THE following writings are published on experiment ; should
they please, they may be followed by others. The writer will
have to contend with some disadvantages, He is unsettled in
his abode, subject to interruptions, and has his share of cares
and vicissitudes. He cannot, therefore, promise a regular plan,
nor regular periods of publication. Should he be encouraged
to proceed, much time may elapse between the appearance of
his numbers ; and their size will depend on the materials he
may have on hand. His writings will partake of the fluctua-
tions of his own thoughts and feelings ; sometimes treating of
scenes before him, sometimes of others purely imaginary, and
sometimes wandering back with his recollections to his native
country. He will not be able to give them that tranquil atten-
tion necessary to finished composition ; and as they must be
transmitted across the Atlantic for publication, he will have
to trust to others to correct the frequent errors of the press.
Should his writings, however, with all their imperfections, be
well received, he cannot conceal that it would be a source of the
purest gratification ; for though he does not aspire to those high
honors which are the rewards of loftier intellects ; yet it is the
dearest wish of his heart to have a secure and cherished, though
humble corner in the good opinions and kind feelings of his
countrymen.

London, 1819.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION,

THE following desultory papers are part of a series written in
this country, but published in America. The author is aware
of the austerity with which the writings of his countrymen have
hitherto been treated by British critics ; he is conscious, too,
that much of the contents of his papers can be interesting only
in the eyes of American readers. It was not his intention,
therefore, to have them reprinted in this country. He has,
however, observed several of them from time to time inserted
in periodical works of merit, and has understood, that it was
probable they would be republished in a collective form. He
has been induced, therefore, to revise and bring them forward
himself, that they may at least come correctly before the public.
Should they be deemed of sufficient importance to attract the
attention of critics, he solicits for them that courtesy and can-
dor which a stranger has some right to claim who presents
himself at the threshold of a hospitable nation.

February, 1820,

xi

THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snaile that crept out of her shel was
turned eftsoons into a toad, and thereby was forced to make a stoole to sit on ; so the
traveller that stragleth from his owne country is in a short time transformed into so
monstrous a shape, that he is faiue to alter his mansion with his manners, and to live
where he can, not where he would. — Lyly's Euphues.

I WAS always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing
strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I
began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into for-
eign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the fre«
quent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town
crier. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my
observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles
about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with
all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot
where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost
seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to
my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, and
conversing with their sages and great men. I even journeyed
one long summer's day to the summit of the most distant hill,
whence I stretched my eye over many a mile of terra incog-
nita, and was astonished to find how vast a globe I inhab-
ited.

This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books
of voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring
their contents, I neglected the regular exercises of the school.
How wistfully would I wander about the pier heads in fine
weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes —
with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails,
and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth !

Further reading and thinking, though they brought this vague
inclination into more reasonable bounds, only served to make
it more decided. I visited various parts of my own country ;
and had I been merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have

6 THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

felt little desire to seek elsewhere its gratification : for on
no country have the charms of nature been more prodigally
lavished. Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver ; her
mountains, with their bright aerial tints ; her valleys, teeming
with wild fertility ; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their
solitudes ; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous ver-
dure; her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the
ocean ; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its
magnificence ; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer
clouds and glorious sunshine : — no, never need an American
look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of
natural scenery.

But Europe held forth the charms of storied and poetical
association. There were to be seen the masterpieces of art, the
refinements of highly cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities
of ancient and local custom. My native country was full of
youthful promise ; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures
of age. Her very ruins told the history of times gone by, and
every mouldering stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander
over the scenes of renowned achievement — to tread, as it were,
in the footsteps of antiquity — to loiter about the ruined castle
— to meditate on the falling tower — to escape, in short, from
the commonplace realities of the present, and lose myself among
the shadowy grandeurs of the past.

I had, beside all this, an earnest desire to see the great men
of the earth. We have, it is true, our great men in America :
not a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled
among them in my time, and been almost withered by the shade
into which they cast me ; for there is nothing so baleful to a
small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the great
man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of
Europe ; for I had read in the works of various philosophers,
that all animals degenerated in America, and man among the
number. A great man of Europe, thought I, must therefore be
as superior to a great man of America as a peak of the Alps to
a highland of the Hudson ; and in this idea I was confirmed, by
observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude
of many English travellers among us, who, I was assured, were
very little people in their own country. I will visit this land of
wonders, thought I, and see the gigantic race from which I am
degenerated.

It has been either my good or evil lot to have my roving
passion gratified. I have wandered through different countries,
and witnessed many of the shifting scenes of life. I cannot

THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. 1

say that I have studied them with the eye of a philosopher, but
rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of
the picturesque stroll from the window of one print-shop to an-
other ; caught sometimes by the delineations of beauty, some-
times by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the
loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tour-
ists to travel pencil in hand, and bring home their portfolios
filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the en-
tertainment of my friends. When, however, I look over the
hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose,
my heart almost fails me, at finding how my idle humor has led
me aside from the great objects studied by every regular travel-
ler who would make a book. I fear I shall give equal disap-
pointment with an unlucky landscape-painter, who had travelled
on the Continent, but following the bent of his vagrant inclina-
tion, had sketched in nooks, and corners, and by-places. His
sketch-book was accordingly crowded with cottages, and land-
scapes, and obscure ruins ; but he had neglected to paint St.
Peter's, or the Coliseum ; the Cascade of Terni, or the Bay of
Naples ; and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole
collection .

THE SKETCH-BOOK

OP

GEOFFREY CRAYON,

" I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere spectator of other
men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methiuks, are
diversely presented unto me, as from a common theater or scene." — BURTON,

THE VOYAGE.

Ships, ships, I will descrie you
Amidst the main,

I will come and try you,

What you are protecting,

And projecting,

"What's your end and aim.
One goes abroad for merchandise and trading,
Another stays to keep his country from invading,
A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading,
Hallo! my faucie, whither wilt thou go? — OLD POEM.

To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to
make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of
worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind pe-
culiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast
space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank
page in existence. There is no gradual transition by which, as
in Europe, the features and population of one country blend
almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment
you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy, until
you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into
the bustle and novelties of another world.

In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a
connected succession of persons and incidents, that carry on
the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and sepa-

9

10 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

ration. We drag, it is true, "a lengthening chain" at each
remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken; we
can trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last
still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us
at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the
secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful
world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real,
between us and our homes — a gulf, subject to tempest, and
fear, and uncertainty, rendering distance palpable, and return
precarious.

Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last
blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the hori-
zon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and
its concerns, and had time for meditation, before I opened
another. That land, too, now vanishing from my view, which
contained all most dear to me in life ; what vicissitudes might
occur in it — what changes might take place in me, before
I should visit it again ! Who can tell, when he sets forth to
wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain currents of
existence ; or when he may return ; or whether it may ever be
his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood ?

I said, that at sea all is vacancy : I should correct the expres-
sion. To one given to day dreaming, and fond of losing him-
self in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation j
but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and
rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I de-
lighted to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to the main-top,
of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil
bosom of a summer sea ; — to gaze upon the piles of golden
clouds just peering above the horizon ; fancy them some fairy
realms, and people them with a creation of my own ; — to watch
the gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if
to die away on those happy shores.

There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe
with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the mon-
sters of the deep at their uncouth gambols : shoals of porpoises
tumbling about the bow of the ship ; the grampus slowly heav-
ing his huge form above the surface ; or the ravenous shark,
darting like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagina-
tion would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery
world beneath me : of the finny herds that roam its fathomless
valleys ; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very
foundations of the earth, and of those wild phantasms that
swell the tales of fishermen and sailors.

THE VOYAGE. 11

Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean,
would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting
this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of
existence ! What a glorious monument of human invention ;
which has in a manner triumphed over wind and wave ; has
brought the ends of the world into communion ; has established
an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions of
the north all the luxuries of the south ; has diffused the light of
knowledge, and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus
bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between
which nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier.

We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a dis-
tance. At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of the
surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the
mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked ; for
there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the
crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their
being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which
the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had
evidently drifted about for many months ; clusters of shell-fish
had fastened abont it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides.
But where, thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has long
been over — they have gone down amidst the roar of the tem-
pest — their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep.
Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and
no one can tell the story of their end. What sighs have been
wafted after that ship ; what prayers offered up at the deserted
fireside of home ! How often has the mistress, the wife, the
mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelli-
gence of this rover of the deep ! How has expectation darkened
into anxiety — anxiety into dread — and dread into despair !
Alas! not one memento may ever return for love to cherish.
All that may ever be known, is, that she sailed from her port,
" and was never heard of more ! "

The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal
anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, when
the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild
and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden
storms which will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a
summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp, in
the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had
his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck
with a short one related by the captain.

" As I was once sailing," said he, u in a fine, stout ship, across

12 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the banks of Newfoundland, one of those heavy fogs which pre-
vail in those parts rendered it impossible for us to see far ahead,
even in the daytime; but at night the weather was so thick
that we could not distinguish any object at twice the length of
the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a constant watch
forward to look out for fishing smacks, which are accustomed
to lie at anchor on the banks. The wind was blowing a smack-
ing breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the
water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of * a sail ahead ! '
— it was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was a
small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside toward us. The
crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light. We
struck her just amid-ships. The force, the size, and weight of
our vessel, bore her down below the waves ; we passed over her
and were hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was
sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked
wretches, rushing from her cabin ; they just started from their
beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their
drowning cry mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it
to our ears, swept us out of all farther hearing. I shall never
forget that cry ! It was some time before we could put the ship
about, she was under such headway. We returned as nearly
as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored.
We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We fired
signal-guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of any
survivors ; but all was silent — we never saw or heard any thing
of them more."

I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all my fine
fancies. The storm increased with the night. The sea was
lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, sullen
sound of rushing waves and broken surges. Deep called unto
deep. At times the black volume of clouds overhead seemed
rent asunder by flashes of lightning which quivered along the
foaming billows, and made the succeeding darkness doubly
terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters,
and were echoed and prolonged by the mountain waves. As I
saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring
caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or
preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water ;
her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an
impending surge appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing
but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the
shock.

When I retired to my cabin, the awful scene still followed

THE VOYAGE. 13

me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded
like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts ; the strain-
ing and groaning of bulkheads, as the ship labored in the
weltering sea, were frightful As I heard the waves rushing
along the sides of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed
as if Death were raging round this floating prison, seeking for
his prey : the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam,
might give him entrance.

A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favoring
breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It is
impossible to resist the gladdening influence of fine weather and
fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her canvas,
every sail swelled, and careering gayly over the curling waves,
how lofty, how gallant, she appears — how she seems to lord it
over the deep ! I might fill a volume with the reveries of a sea
voyage ; for with me it is almost a continual reverie — but it is
time to get to shore.

It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of " land ! "
was given from the mast-head. None but those who have ex-
perienced it can form an idea of the delicious throng of sensa-
tions which rush into an American's bosom when he first comes
in sight of Europe. There is a volume of associations with the
very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with every thing
of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years
have pondered.

From that time, until the moment of arrival, it was all fever-
ish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian
giants along the coast ; the headlands of Ireland, stretching out
into the channel ; the Welsh mountains, towering into the
clouds ; all were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up
the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My
eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrub-
beries and green grass-plots. I saw the mouldering ruin of an
abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church
rising from the brow of a neighboring hill — all were charac-
teristic of England.

The tide and wind were so favorable, that the ship was
enabled to come at once to the pier. It was thronged with
people ; some idle lookers-on, others eager expectants of friends
or relatives. I could distinguish the merchant to whom the
ship was consigned. I knew him by his calculating brow and
restless air. His hands were thrust into his pockets, he was
whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a small space
having been accorded him by the crowd, in deference to his

14 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

temporary importance. There were repeated cheerings and
salutations interchanged between the shore and the ship, as
friends happened to recognize each other. I particularly
noticed one young woman of humble dress, but interesting de-
meanor. She was leaning forward from among the crowd ;
her eye hurried over the ship as it neared the shore, to catch
some wished-for countenance. She seemed disappointed and
agitated; when I heard a faint voice call her name. — It was
from a poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage, and had ex-
cited the sympathy of every one on board. When the weather
was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on deck
in the shade, but of late his illness had so increased that he had
taken to his hammock, and only breathed a wish that he might
see his wife before he died. He had been helped on deck as
we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds,
with a countenance so wasted, so pale, so ghastly, that it was
no wonder even the eye of affection did not recognize him.
But at the sound of his voice, her eye darted on his features ;
it read, at once, a whole volume of sorrow ; she clasped her
hands, uttered a faint shriek, and stood wringing them in silent
agony.

All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of acquaint-
ances — the greetings of friends — the consultations of men of
business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to
meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of my
forefathers — but felt that I was a stranger in the land.

ROSCOE.

In the service of mankind to be

A guardian god below ; still to employ

The mind's brave ardor in heroic aims,

Such as may raise us o'er the grovelling herd,

And make us shine for ever — that is life. — THOMSOX.

ONE of the first places to which a stranger is taken in Liver-
pool, is the Athenseum. It is established on a liberal and
judicious plan ; it contains a good library, and spacious read-
ing-room, and is the great literary resort of the place. Go
there at what hour you may, you are sure to find it filled with
grave-looking personages, deeply absorbed in the study of
newspapers. *

HOSCOE. 15

As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned, my attention
was attracted to a person just entering the room. He was ad-
vanced in life, tall, and of a form that might once have been
commanding, but it was a little bowed by time — perhaps by
care. He had a noble Roman style of countenance ; a head
that would have pleased a painter ; and though some slight
furrows on his brow showed that wasting thought had been
busy there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire of a poetic
soul. There was something in his whole appearance that indi-
cated a being of a different order from the bustling race around
him.

I inquired his name, and was informed that it was ROSCOE.
I drew back with an involuntary feeling of veneration. This,
then, was an author of celebrity ; this was one of those men
whose voices have gone forth to the ends of the earth ; with
whose minds I have communed even in the solitudes of Amer-
ica. Accustomed, as we are in our country, to know European
writers only by their works, we cannot conceive of them, as of
other men, engrossed by trivial or sordid pursuits, and jostling
with the crowd of common minds in the dusty paths of life.
They pass before our imaginations like superior beings, radiant
with the emanations of their genius, and surrounded by a halo
of literary .glory.

To find, therefore, the elegant historian of the Medici min-
gling among the busy sons of traffic, at first shocked my poeti-
cal ideas ; but it is from the very circumstances and situation
in which he has been placed, that Mr. Roscoe derives his high-
est claims to admiration. It is interesting to notice how some
minds seem almost to create themselves ; springing up under
every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible
way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight in
disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear
legitimate dulness to maturity ; and to glory in the vigor and
luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters the seeds
of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the
stony places of the world, and some be choked by the thorns
and brambles of early adversity, yet others will now and then
strike root even in the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up
into sunshine, and spread over their sterile birthplace all the
beauties of vegetation.

Such has been the case with Mr. Roscoe. Born in a place
apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent ; in the very
market-place of trade ; without fortune, family connections, or
patronage ; self -prbmp ted, self-sustained, and almost self-taught,

16 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

he has conquered every obstacle, achieved his way to eminence,
and having become one of the ornaments of the nation, has
turned the whole force of his talents and influence to advance
and embellish his native town.

Indeed, it is this last trait in his character which has given
him the greatest interest in my eyes, and induced me particu-
larly to point him out to my countrymen. Eminent as are his
literary merits, he is but one among the many distinguished
authors of this intellectual nation. They, however, in general,
live but for their own fame, or their own pleasures. Their
private history presents no lesson to the world, or, perhaps, a
humiliating one of human frailty and inconsistency. At best,
they are prone to steal away from the bustle and commonplace
of busy existence ; to indulge in the selfishness of lettered ease ;
and to revel in scenes of mental, but exclusive enjoyment.

Mr. Roscoe, on the contrar}-, has claimed none of the accorded
privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no garden of
thought, nor elysium of fancy ; but has gone forth into the high-
wa}'s and thoroughfares of life, he has planted bowers by the
way-side, for the refreshment of the pilgrim and the sojourner,
and has opened pure fountains, where the laboring man may
turn aside from the dust and heat of the day, and drink of the
living streams of knowledge. There is a " daily beauty in his
life," on which mankind may meditate, and grow better. It
exhibits no lofty and almost useless, because inimitable, ex-
ample of excellence ; but presents a picture of active, yet sim-
ple and mutable virtues, which are within every man's reach, but
which, unfortunately, are not exercised by many, or this world
would be a paradise.

But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of the
citizens of our young and busy country, where literature and
the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser
plants of daily necessity ; and must depend for their culture,
not on the exclusive devotion of time and wealth ; nor the
quickening rays of titled patronage ; but on hours and seasons
snatched from the pursuit of worldly interests, by intelligent
and public-spirited individuals.

He has shown how much may be done for a place in hours of
leisure by one master spirit, and how completely it can give its
own impress to surrounding objects. Like his own Lorenzo de
Medici, on whom he seems to have fixed his eye, as on a pure
model of antiquity, he has interwoven the history of his life
with the history of his native town, and has made the founda-
tions of its fame the monuments of his virtues. Wherever you

ROSCOE. 17

go, in Liverpool, yon perceive traces of his footsteps in all that
is elegant and liberal. He found the tide of wealth flowing
merely in the channels of traffic ; he has diverted from it invig-
orating rills to refresh the gardens of literature. By his own
example and constant exertions, he has effected that union of
commerce and the intellectual pursuits, so eloquently recom-
mended in one of his latest writings ; l and has practically
proved how beautifully they may be brought to harmonize, and
to benefit each other. The noble institutions for literary and
scientific purposes, which reflect such credit on Liverpool, and
are giving such an impulse to the public mind, have mostly
been originated, and have all been effectively promoted by Mr.
Roscoe : and when we consider the rapidly increasing opulence
and magnitude of that town, which promises to vie in commer-
cial importance with the metropolis, it will be perceived that in
awakening an ambition of mental improvement among its in-
habitants, he has effected a great benefit to the cause of British
literature.

In America, we know Mr. Roscoe only as the author — in
Liverpool he is spoken of as the banker ; and I was told of his
having been unfortunate in business. I could not pity him, as
I heard some rich men do. I considered him far above the
reach of pity. Those who live only for the world, and in
the world, may be cast down by the frowns of adversity ; but
a man like Roscoe is not to be overcome by the reverses of for-
tune. They do but drive him in upon the resources of his own
mind ; to the superior society of his own thoughts ; which the
best of men are apt sometimes to neglect, and to roam abroad
in search of less worthy associates. He is independent of the
world around him. He lives with antiquity and posterity : with
antiquity, in the sweet communion of studious retirement ; and
with posterity in the generous aspirings after future renown.
The solitude of such a mind is its state of highest enjoyment.
It is then visited by those elevated meditations which are the
proper aliment of noble souls, and are, like manna, sent from
heaven, in the wilderness of this world.

While my feelings were yet alive on the subject, it was my
fortune to light on further traces of Mr. Roscoe. I was riding
out with a gentleman, to view the environs of Liverpool, when
he turned off, through a gate, into some ornamented grounds.
After riding a short distance, we came to a spacious mansion
of freestone, built in the Grecian style. It was not in the purest

1 Address on the opening of the Liverpool Institution.

18 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

taste, yet it had an air of elegance, and the situation was de-
lightful. A fine lawn sloped away from it, studded with clumps
of trees, so disposed as to break a soft fertile country into a
variety of landscapes. The Mersey was seen winding a broad
quiet sheet of water through an expanse of green meadow land ;
while the Welsh mountains, blende'd with clouds, and melting
into distance, bordered the horizon.

This was Roscoe's favorite residence during the days of his
prosperity. It had been the seat of elegant hospitality and lit-
erary retirement. .The house was now silent and deserted. I
saw the windows of the study, which looked out upon the soft
scenery I have mentioned. The windows were closed — the
library was gone. Two or three ill-favored beings were loiter-
ing about the place, whom rny fancy pictured into retainers of
the law. It was like visiting some classic fountain that had
once welled its pure waters in a sacred shade, but finding it dry
and dusty, with the lizard and the toad brooding over the shat-
tered marbles.

I inquired after the fate of Mr. Roscoe's library, which had
consisted of scarce and foreign books, from many of which he
had drawn the materials for his Italian histories. It had passed
under the hammer of the auctioneer, and was dispersed about
the country.

The good people of the vicinity thronged like wreckers to
get some part of the noble vessel that had been driven on shore.
Did such a scene admit of ludicrous associations, we might
imagine something whimsical in this strange irruption in the
regions of learning. Pigmies rummaging the armory of a giant,
and contending for the possession of weapons which they could
not wield. We might picture to ourselves some knot of specu-
lators, debating with calculating brow over the quaint binding
and illuminated margin of an obsolete author ; of the air of in-
tense, but baffled sagacity, with which some successful purchaser
attempted to dive into the, black-letter bargain he had secured.

It is a beautiful incident in the story of Mr. Roscoe's misfor-
tunes, and one which cannot fail to interest the studious mind,
that the parting with his books seems to have touched upon his
tenderest feelings, and to have been the only circumstance that
could provoke the notice of his muse. The scholar only knows
how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts
and innocent hours become in the seasons of adversity. When
all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain
their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the converse
of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace,

ROSCOE. 19

these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days,
and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived
hope, nor deserted sorrow.

I do not wish to censure ; but, surely, if the people of Liver-
pool had been properly sensible of what was due to Mr. Roscoe
and themselves, his library would never have been sold. Good
worldly reasons may, doubtless, be given for the circumstance,
which it would be difficult to combat with others that might
seem merely fanciful ; but it certainly appears to me such an
opportunity as seldom occurs, of cheering a noble mind strug-
gling under misfortunes by one of the most delicate, but most
expressive tokens of public sympathy. It is difficult, however,
to estimate a man of genius properly who is daily before our
eyes. He becomes mingled and confounded with other men.
His great qualities lose their novelty, we become too familiar
with the common materials which form the basis even of the
loftiest character. Some of Mr. Roscoe's townsmen may regard
him merely as a man of business ; others as a politician ; all
find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and
surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly
wisdom. Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity of
character, which gives the nameless grace to real excellence,
may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds, who
do not know that true worth is always void of glare and preten-
sion. But the man of letters who speaks of Liverpool, speaks
of it as the residence of Roscoe. — The intelligent traveller who
visits it, inquires where Roscoe is to be seen. — He is the liter-
ary landmark of the place, indicating its existence to the distant
scholar. — He is like Pompey's column at Alexandria, towering
alone in classic dignity.

The following sonnet, addressed by Mr. Roscoe to his books,
on parting with them, is alluded to in the preceding article. If
any thing can add effect to the pure feeling and elevated thought
here displayed, it is the conviction, that the whole is no effusion
of fancy, but a faithful transcript from the writer's heart :

TO MY BOOKS.

As one, who, destined from his friends to part,
Regrets his loss, but hopes again erewhile
To share their converse, and enjoy their smile,

And tempers, as he may, affliction's dart;

Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art,

Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,

I now resign you ; nor with fainting heart ;

20 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

For pass a few short years, or days, or hours,

And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore;

When freed from earth, unlimited its powers,
Mind shall with mind direct communion hold,

And kindred spirits meet to part no more.

THE WIFE.

The treasures of the deep are not so precious
As are the concealed comforts of a man
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings, when I come but near the house.
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth —
The violet bed's not sweeter!

MIDDLETON.

I HAVE often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which
women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune.
Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and
prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of
the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their
character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing
can be more touching, than to behold a soft and tender female,
who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every
trivial roughness, while treading the prosperous paths of life,
suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and sup-
porter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding, with un-
shrinking firmness, the bitterest blasts of adversity.

As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about
the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the
hard3T plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its
caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs ; so is it
beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the
mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours,
should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calam-
ity ; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature,
tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the
broken heart.

I was once congratulating a friend, who had around him a
blooming family, knit together in the strongest affection. " I
can wish you no better lot," said he, with enthusiasm, " than
to have a wife and children. If you are prosperous, there they
are to share your prosperity ; if otherwise, there they are to

THE WIFE. 21

comfort you." And, indeed, I have observed that a married
man falling into misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation
in the world than a single one ; partly, because he is more stim-
ulated to exertion by the necessities of the helpless and be-
loved beings who depend upon him for subsistence ; but chiefly,
because his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endear-
ments, and his self-respect kept alive by finding, that though
all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little
world of love at home, of which he is the monarch. Whereas,
a single man is apt to run to waste and self-neglect ; to fancy
himself lonely and abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin, like
some deserted mansion, for want of an inhabitant.

These observations call to mind a little domestic story, of
which I was once a witness. My intimate friend, Leslie, had
married a beautiful and accomplished girl, who had been
brought up in the midst of fashionable life. She had, it is
true, no fortune, but that of my friend was ample ; and he
delighted in the anticipation of indulging her in every elegant
pursuit, and administering to those delicate tastes and fancies
that spread a kind of witchery about the sex. — "Her life,"
said he, " shall be like a fairy tale."

The very difference in their characters produced a harmonious
combination ; he was of a romantic, and somewhat serious cast ;
she was all life and gladness. I have often noticed the mute
rapture with which he would gaze upon her in company, of
which her sprightly powers made her the delight ; and how, in
the midst of applause, her eye would still turn to him, as if
there alone she sought favor and acceptance. When leaning
on his arm, her slender form contrasted finely with his tall,
manly person. The fond confiding air with which she looked
up to him seemed to call forth a flush of triumphant pride and
cherishing tenderness, as if he doted on his lovely burden for
its very helplessness. Never did a couple set forward on the
flowery path of early and well-suited marriage with a fairer
prospect of felicity.

It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to have em-
barked his property in large speculations ; and he had not been
married many months, when, by a succession of sudden disas-
ters, it was swept from him, and he found himself reduced al-
most to penury. For a time he kept his situation to himself,
and went about with a haggard -countenance, and a breaking
heart. His life was but a protracted agony ; and what ren-
dered it more insupportable was the necessity of keeping up a
smile in the presence of his wife ; for he could not bring him'

22 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

self to overwhelm her with the news. She saw, however, with
the quick eyes of affection, that all was not well with him. She
marked his altered looks and stifled sighs, and was not to be
deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at cheerfulness. She
tasked all her sprightly powers and tender blandishments to
win him back to happiness ; but she only drove the arrow
deeper into his soul. The more he saw cause to love her, the
more torturing was the thought that he was soon to make her
wretched. A little while, thought he, and the smile will vanish
from that cheek — the song will die away from those lips — the
lustre of those eyes will be quenched with sorrow — and the
happy heart which now beats lightly in that bosom, will be
weighed down, like mine, by the cares and miseries of the
world.

At length he came to me one day, and related his whole
situation in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had heard
him through, I inquired, " Does your wife know all this? " At
the question he burst into an agony of tears. "For God's
sake ! " cried he, " if you have any pity on me, don't mention
my wife ; it is the thought of her that drives me almost to
madness ! "

"And why not?" said I. "She must know it sooner or
later : you cannot keep it long from her, and the intelligence
may break upon her in a more startling manner than if impartec]
by yourself ; for the accents of those we love soften the harshest
tidings. Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of
her sympathy ; and not merely that, but also endangering the
only bond that can keep hearts together — an unreserved com-
munity of thought and feeling. She will soon perceive that
something is secretly preying upon your mind ; and true love
will not brook reserve : it feels undervalued and outraged,
when even the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it."

" Oh, but my friend ! to think what a blow I am .to give to
all her future prospects — how I am to strike her very soul to
the earth, by telling her that her husband is a beggar ! — that
she is to forego all the elegancies of life — all the pleasures of
society — to shrink with me into indigence and obscurity ! To
tell her that I have dragged her down from the sphere in which
she might have continued to move in constant brightness — the
light of every eye — the admiration of every heart ! — How can
she bear poverty ? She has been brought up in all the refine-
ments of opulence. How can she bear neglect? She has been
the idol of society. Oh, it will break her heart — it will break
her heart! "

THE WIFE. 23

I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its flow ; for
sorrow relieves itself by words. When his paroxysm had sub-
sided, and he had relapsed into moody silence, I resumed the
subject gently, and urged him to break his situation at once to
his wife. He shook his head mournfully, but positively.

" But how are you to keep it from her? It is necessary she
should know it, that you may take the steps proper to the
alteration of your circumstances. You must change your style
of living — nay," observing a pang to pass across his coun-
tenance, "don't let that afflict you. I am sure you have
never placed your happiness in outward show — you have yet
friends, warm friends, who will not think the worse of you for
being less splendidly lodged : and surely it does not require a
palace to be happy with Mary — " "I could be happy with
her," cried he, convulsively, " in a hovel! — I could go down
with her into poverty and the dust ! — I could — I could — God
bless her! — God bless her!" cried he, bursting into a trans-
port of grief and tenderness.

"And believe me, my friend," said I, stepping up, and
grasping him warmly by the hand, " believe me, she can be the
same with 3^011. Ay, more : it will be a source of pride and
triumph to her — it will call forth all the latent energies and
fervent sympathies of her nature ; for she will rejoice to prove
that she loves you for yourself. There is in every true
woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in
the broad daylight of prosperity ; but which kindles up, and
beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. No man
knows what the wife of his bosom is — no man knows what a
ministering angel she is — until he has gone with her through
the fiery trials of this world."

There was something in the earnestness of my manner, and
the figurative style of my language, that caught the excited
imagination of Leslie. I knew the .ciiiditor I had to deal with ;
and following up the impression I had made, I finished by per-
suading him to go home and unburden his sad heart to his
wife.

I must confess, notwithstanding all I had said, I felt some
little solicitude fo.r the result. Who can calculate on the forti-
tude of one whose life has been a round of pleasures? Her
gay spirits might revolt at the dark, downward path of low
humility, suddenly pointed out before her, and might cling
to the sunny regions in which they had hitherto revelled.
Besides, ruin in fashionable life is accompanied by so many
galling mortifications, to which, in other ranks, it is a stranger.

24 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

— In short, I could not meet Leslie, the next morning, without
trepidation. He had made the disclosure.

" And how did she bear it? "

" Like an angel ! It seemed rather to be a relief to her
mind, for she threw her arms round my neck, and asked if
this was all that had lately made me unhappy. — But, poor
girl," added he, " she cannot realize the change we must
undergo. She has no idea of poverty but in the abstract : she
has only read of it in poetry, where it is allied to love. She
feels as yet no privation : she suffers no loss of accustomed
conveniences nor elegancies. When we come practically to
experience its sordid cares, its paltry wants, its petty humilia-
tions— then will be the real trial."

"But," said I, "now that you have got over the severest
task, that of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world
into the secret the better. The disclosure may be mortifying ;
but then it is a single misery, and soon over ; whereas you
otherwise suffer it, in anticipation, ever}T hour in the day. It
is not poverty, so much as pretence, that harasses a ruined man

— the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse —
the keeping up a hollow show that must soon come to an end.
Have the courage to appear poor, and you disarm poverty of
its sharpest sting." On this point I found Leslie perfectly
prepared. He had no false pride himself, and as to his wife,
she was only anxious to conform to their altered fortunes.

Some days afterwards, he called upon me in the evening.
He had disposed of his dwelling-house, and taken a small cot-
tage in the country, a few miles from town. He had been
busied all day in sending out furniture. The new establish-
ment required few articles, and those of the simplest kind.
All the splendid furniture of his late residence had been sold,
excepting his wife's harp. That, he said, was too closely asso-
ciated with the idea of herself ; it belonged to the little story
of their loves ; for some of the sweetest moments of their
courtship were those when he had leaned over that instrument,
and listened to the melting tones of her voice. I could not
but smile at this instance of romantic gallantry in a doting
husband.

He was now going out to the cottage, where his wife had
been all day, superintending its arrangement. My feelings
had become strongly interested in the progress of this family
story, and as it was a fine evening, I offered to accompany him.

He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and as we
walked out, fell into a fit of gloomy musing.

THE WIFE. 25

" Poor Mary ! " at length broke, with a heavy sigh, from his
lips.

"And what of her," asked I, "has any thing happened to
her?"

"What," said he, darting an impatient glance, "is it noth-
ing to be reduced to this paltry situation — to be caged in a
miserable cottage — to be obliged to toil almost in the menial
concerns of her wretched habitation? "

" Has she then repined at the change? "

"Repined! she has been nothing but sweetness and good
humor. Indeed, she seems in better spirits than I have ever
known her ; she has been to ine all love, and tenderness, and
comfort ! "

" Admirable girl ! " exclaimed I. " You call yourself poor,
my friend ; you never were so rich — you never knew the bound-
less treasures of excellence you possess in that wonian."

"Oh! but my friend, if this first meeting at the cottage
were over, I think I could then be comfortable. But this is
her first day of real experience : she has been introduced into
a humble dwelling — she has been employed all day in arran-
ging its miserable equipments — she has for the first time known
the fatigues of domestic employment — she has for the first
time looked round her on a home destitute of every thing ele-
gant — almost of every thing convenient ; and may now be
sitting down, exhausted and spiritless, brooding over a prospect
of future poverty."

There was a degree of probability in this picture that I could
not gainsay, so we walked on in silence.

After turning from the main road, up a narrow lane, so
thickly shaded with forest trees as to give it a complete air of
seclusion, we came in sight of the cottage. It was humble
enough in its appearance for the most pastoral poet ; and yet
it had a pleasing rural look. A wild vine had overrun one end
with a profusion of foliage ; a few trees threw their branches
gracefully over it ; and I observed several pots of flowers taste-
fully disposed about the door, and on the grass-plot in front.
A small wicket-gate opened upon a footpath that wound through
some shrubbery to the door. Just as we .approached, we heard
the sound of music — Leslie grasped my arm ; we paused and
listened. It was Mary's voice, singing, in a style of the most
touching simplicuy, a little air of which her husband was pecul-
iarly fond.

I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. He stepped forward,
to hear more distinctly. His step made a noise on the gravel-

26 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

walk. A bright beautiful face glanced out at the window, and
vanished — a light footstep was heard — and Mary came trip-
ping forth to meet us. She was in a pretty rural dress of
white ; a few wild flowers were twisted in her tine hair ; a fresh
bloom was on her cheek ; her whole countenance beamed with
smiles — I had never seen her look so lovely.

" My dear George," cried she, " I am so glad you are come ;
I have been watching and watching for you ; and running
down the lane, and looking out for you. I've set out a table
under a beautiful tree behind the cottage ; and I've been gath-
ering some of the most delicious strawberries, for I know you
are fond of them — and we have such excellent cream — and
every thing is so sweet and still here. — Oh ! " said she, putting
her arm within his, and looking up brightly in his face, "Oh,
we shall be so happy ! ' '

Poor Leslie was overcome. — He caught her to his bosom —
he folded his arms round her — he kissed her again and again
— he could not speak, but the tears gushed into his eyes ; and
he has often assured me that though the world has since gone
prosperously with him, and his life has indeed been a happy
one, yet never has he experienced a moment of more exquisite
felicity.

[THE following Tale was found among the papers of the late
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New- York, who
was very curious in the Dutch History of the province, and the
manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His
historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books
as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty on his
favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still
more, their wives, rich in that legendary lore, so invaluable to
true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genu-
ine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse,
under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little
clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of
a bookworm.

The result of all these researches was a history of the prov-
ince, during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he pub-
lished some years since. There have been various opinions as
to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it
is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its
scrupulous accuracy, which, indeed, was a little questioned, on

RIP VAN WINKLE. 27

its first appearance, but has since been completely established ;
and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book
of unquestionable authority.

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his
work, and now, that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much
harm to his memory, to say, that his time might have been
much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was
apt to ride his hobby his own way ; and though it did now and
then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and
grieve the spirit of some friends for whom he felt the truest
deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are remem-
bered "more in sorrow than in anger,"1 and it begins to be
suspected, that he never intended to injure or offend. But
however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still
held dear by many folk, whose good opinion is well worth
having ; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone
so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes, and
have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to
the being stamped on a Waterloo medal, or a Queen Anne's
farthing.]

RIP VAN WINKLE.

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER.

By Woden, God of Saxons,

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep

Unto thylke day in which I creep into

My sepulchre. — CARTWBIGHT.

WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remem-
ber the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch
of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west
of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over
the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change
of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change
in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains ; and they
are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect
barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are
clothed in blu^and purple, and print their bold outlines on the
clear evening sky ; but sometimes, when the rest of the land-
scape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors

f Vide the excellent discourse of G. C. Verplanck, Esq., before the New- York
Historical Society.

28 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun,
will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have
descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shin-
gle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of
the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer land-
scape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been
founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of
the province, just about the beginning of the government of the
good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace !) and there were
some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a
few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland,
having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with
weathercocks.

In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which
to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-
beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was
yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow,
of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the
Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days
of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of fort
Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a
simple good-natured man ; he was moreover a kind neighbor,
and an obedient henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter
circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which
gained him such universal popularity ; for those men are most
apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the
discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are
rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic
tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in
the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering.
A termagant wife ma}', therefore, in some respects, be consid-
ered a tolerable blessing ; and if so. Rip Van Winkle was thrice
blessed.

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good
wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took
his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever
they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to
lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached.
He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them
to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of
ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging

RIP VAN WINKLE. 29

about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them hang-
ing on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thou-
sand tricks on him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark
at him throughout the neighborhood.

The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable
aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from
the want of assiduity or perseverance ; for he would sit on a
wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and
fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be
encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece
on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and
swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or
wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor,
even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country
frolics for husking Indian corn or building stone fences. The
women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their
errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging
husbands would not do for them ; — in a word, Rip was ready to
attend to anybody's business but his own ; but as to doing family
duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; it
was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole coun-
ty ; every thing about it went wrong, and would go wrong in
spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces ;
his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages ;
weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere
else ; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had
some out-door work to do ; so that though his patrimonial
estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre,
until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian
corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the
neighborhood.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they be-
longed to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own
likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of
his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his
mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galli-
gaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as
a fine lady does her train in bad weather.

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals,
of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat
white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought
or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a
pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in

30 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

perfect contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in
his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he
was bringing on his family.

Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going,
and every thing he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of
household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all
lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into
a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up
his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a
fresh volley from his wife, so that he was fain to draw off his
forces, and take to the outside of the house — the only side
which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband.

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as
much henpecked as his master ; for Dame Van Winkle regarded
them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf
with an evil eye as the cause of his master's going so often
astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable
dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods
— but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-be-
setting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf
entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground,
or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air,
casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at
the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to the
door with yelping precipitation.

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle, as years
of matrimony rolled on : a tart temper never mellows with age,
and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with
constant use. For a long while he used to console himself,
when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual
club of the sxiges, philosophers, and other idle personages of
the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small
inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his majesty George
the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade, of a long lazy
summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling
endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been
worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discus-
sions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old news-
paper fell into their hands, from some passing traveller. How
solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by
Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper learned little
man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in
the dictionary ; and how sagely they would deliberate upon
public events some months after they had taken place.

RIP VAN WINKLE. 31

The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by
Nicholas V^edder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the
inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till
night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in
the shade of a large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell the
hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is
true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe inces-
santly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his
adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather
his opinions. When any thing that was read or related dis-
pleased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently,
and to send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs ; but when
pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and
emit it in light and placid clouds, and sometimes taking the
pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about
his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect appro-
bation.

From even this strong hold the unlucky Rip was at length
routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in
upon the tranquillity of the assemblage, and call the members
all to nought ; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder
himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago,
who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in
habits of idleness.

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair, and his only
alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor
of his wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into
the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the
foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf,
with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution.
" Poor Wolf," he would say, " thy mistress leads thee a dog's
life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt
never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf would wag his
tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and 'if dogs can feel
pity, I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his
heart.

In a long ramble of the kind, on a fine autumnal day, Rip
had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the
Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favorite sport of
squirrel- shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-
echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he
threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll covered
with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice.
From an opening between the trees, he could overlook all the

32 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a
distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its
silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud,
or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its
glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands.

On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen,
wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments
from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected
rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this
scene ; evening was gradually advancing ; the mountains began
to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys ; he saw that
it would be dark long before he could reach the village ; and
he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the
terrors of Dame Van Winkle.

As he was about to descend he heard a voice from a distance
hallooing, " Rip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! " He looked
round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary
flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have
deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard the
same cry ring through the still evening air, " Rip Van Winkle !
Rip Van Winkle!" —at the same time Wolf bristled up his
back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side,
looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague
apprehension stealing over him : he looked anxiously in the
same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling
up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being
in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be
some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, he
hastened down to yield it.

On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the singu-
larity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short square-
built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard.
His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion — a cloth jerkin
strapped round the waist — several pair of breeches, the outer
one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the
sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a
stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip
to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy
and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with
his usual alacrity, and mutually relieving one another, they
clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a
mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then
heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to

KIP VAN WINKLE. 33

issue out of a deep ravine or rather cleft between lofty rocks,
toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an
instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those
transient thunder-showers which often take place in mountain
heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came
to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpen-
dicular precipices, over the brinks of which, impending trees
shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the
azure sky, and the bright evening cloud. During the whole
time, Rip and his companion had labored on in silence ; for
though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object
of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was
something strange and incomprehensible about the unknown,
that inspired awe, and checked familiarity.

On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder pre-
sented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a com-
pany of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They
were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion : some wore short
doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and
most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that
of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a
large beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of an-
other seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted
by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail.
They all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There
was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout
old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a
laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and
feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in
them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old
Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the vil-
lage parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at
the time of the settlement.

What seemed particularly odd to Rip, was, that though these
folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained
the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal,
the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed.
Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of
the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the
mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.

As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly
desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed
statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre coun-
tenances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote

34 THE SKETCH-BOOR.

together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg
into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the com-
pany. He obeyed with fear and trembling ; they quaffed the
liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game.

By degrees, Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even
ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the bev-
erage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent
Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon
tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another,
and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at length
his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his
head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence
he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes

— it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and
twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft,
and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought
Rip, " I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occur-
rences before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of
liquor — the mountain ravine — the wild retreat among the rocks

— the wo-begone party at nine-pins — the flagon — " Oh ! that
flagon ! that wicked flagon ! " thought Rip — " what excuse shall
I make to Dame Van Winkle? "

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-
oiled fowling-piece, he found an old fire-lock lying b}' him, the
barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock
worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysters of the
mountain had put a trick upon him, and having dosed him with
liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared,
but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge.
He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain;
the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be
seen.

He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's
gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his
dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the
joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain
beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic
should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a
blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty
he got down into the glen ; he found the gully up which he and
his companion had ascended the preceding evening ; but to his
astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it,
leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling

EIP VAN WINKLE. 35

murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides,
working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras,
and witch-hazel ; and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the
wild grape vines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to
tree, and spread a kind of network in his path.

At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through
the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no traces of such 'opening
remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over
which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam,
and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of
the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to
a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was
only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting
high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice ;
and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look clown and
scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done?
The morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want
of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun ; he
dreaded to meet his wife ; but it would not do to starve among
the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty fire-
lock, and with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his
steps homeward.

As he approached the village, he met a number of people,
but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he
had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country
round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that
to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal
marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him,
invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this
gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to
his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long !

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of
strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and point-
ing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he
recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed.
The very village was altered : it was lar^3r and more populous.
There were rows of houses which he had never seen before,
and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared.
Strange names were over the doors — strange faces at the win-
dows — every thing was strange. His mind now misgave him ;
he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him
were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which
he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill moun-
tains — there ran the silver Hudson at a distance — there was

36 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

every hill and dale precisely as it had always been — Rip was
sorely perplexed — " That flagon last night," thought he, " has
addled my poor head sadly ! "

It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own
house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every
moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He
found the house gone to decay — the roof fallen in, the windows
shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog,
that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Rip called him
by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on.
This was an unkind cut indeed. — " My very dog," sighed poor
Rip, " has forgotten me ! "

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van
Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn,
and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his
connubial fears — he called loudly for his wife and children —
the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then
all again was silence.

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the vil-
lage inn — but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden build-
ing stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them
broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the
door was painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle."
Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little
Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with
something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from
it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of
stars and stripes — all this was strange and incomprehensible.
He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King
George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe,
but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat
was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the
hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked
hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL
WASHINGTON.

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but
none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people
seemed changed. There was a bus}*, bustling, disputatious
tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy
tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedcler,
with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering
clouds of tobacco smoke, instead of idle speeches ; or Van
Buinmel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an
ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean bilious-looking

RIP VAN WINKLE. 37

fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehe-
mently about rights of citizens — election — members of Con-
gress— liberty — Bunker's hill — heroes of seventy-six — and
other words which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the be-
wildered Van Winkle.

The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his
rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women
and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the
tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from
head to foot, with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to
him, and drawing him partly aside, inquired, "on which side
he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short
but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on
tiptoe, inquired in his ear, " whether he was Federal or Demo-
crat." Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question ;
when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp
cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them
to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and plant-
ing himself before Van Winkle, with one arm a-kimbo, the
other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrat-
ing, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone,
" what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder,
and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in
the village ? ' '

" Alas ! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, " I am
a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of
the King, God bless him ! ' '

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — " a tory !
a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with him ! "

It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in
the cocked hat restored order ; and having assumed a tenfold
austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit,
what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor
man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely
came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep
about the tavern.

" Well — who are they ? — name them. ' '

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, ''Where's
Nicholas Vedder? "

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man re-
plied, in a thin, piping voice, " Nicholas Vedder? wJhy, he is
dead and gone these eighteen years ! There was a wooden
tomb-stone in the church-yard that used to tell all about him,
but that's rotten and gone too."

38 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

" Where's Brom Butcher? "

" Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war ;
some say he was killed at the storming of Stony-Point — others
say he was drowned in the squall, at the foot of Antony's
Nose. I don't know — he never came back again."

"Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?"

" He went off to the wars, too ; was a great militia general,
and is now in Congress."

Rip's heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his
home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world.
Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous
lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand :
war — Congress — Stony-Point ! — he had no courage to ask
after any more friends, but cried out in despair, " Does nobody
here know Rip Van Winkle ? ' '

"Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three. "Oh to
be sure ! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the
tree."

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as he
went up the mountain ; apparently as lazy and certainly as
ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded.
He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or
another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in
the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name ?

"God knows," exclaimed he at his wit's end; "I'm not
myself — I'm somebody else — that's me yonder — no — that's
somebody else, got into my shoes — I was myself last night,
but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my gun,
and every thing's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't tell
what's my name, or who I am ! "

The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink
significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads.
There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keep-
ing the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very suggestion
of which, the self-important man with the cocked hat retired
with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh
comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the
gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms,
which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip,"
cried she, " hush, you little fool ; the old man won't hurt you."
The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her
voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind.

" What is your name, my good woman? " asked he.

"Judith Gardenier."

RIP VAN WINKLE. 39

" And your father's name? "

" Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name ; but it's twenty
years since he went away from home with his gun, and never
has been heard of since — his dog came home without him ; but
whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians,
nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl."

Rip had but one question more to ask ; but he put it with a
faltering voice :

" Where's your mother? "

Oh, she too had died but a short time since : she broke a
blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England pedler.

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence.
The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught
his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your father ! "
cried he — " Young Rip Van Winkle once — old Rip Van
Winkle now ! — Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle ! "

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from
among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under
it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, u Sure enough! it is
Rip Van Winkle — it is himself. Welcome home again, old
neighbor — Why, where have you been these twenty long
years ? ' '

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had
been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when
they heard it ; some were seen to wink at each other, and put
their tongues in their cheeks ; and the self-important man in
the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned to
the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook
his head — upon which there was a general shaking of the head
throughout the assemblage.

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter
Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He
was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one
of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most
ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the
wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He
recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most
satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a
fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the
Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange be-
ings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson,
the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of
vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon,
being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enter'

40 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

prise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great
city called by his name. That his father had once seen them
in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of
the mountain ; and that he himself had heard, one summer
afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of
thunder.

To make a long story short, the company broke up, and
returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's
daughter took him home to live with her ; she had a snug, well-
furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a husband,
whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb
upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of
himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to
work on the farm, but evinced an hereditary disposition to at-
tend to any thing else but his business.

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits , he soon found
many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the
wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among
the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that
happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he toolf
his place once more on the bench, at the inn door, and was
reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chron-
icle of the old times "before the war." It was some time
before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could
be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place
during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary
war — that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England
— and that, instead of being a subject of his majesty George
the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip,
in fact, was no politician ; the changes of states and empires
made but little impression on him ; but there was one species
of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was —
petticoat government. Happily, that was at an end ; he had
got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and
out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame
Van Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he
shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes;
which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his
fate, or joy at his deliverance.

He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr.
Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some
points every time he told it, which was doubtless owing to his
having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA. 41

to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in
the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some always pre-
tended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been
out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always
remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost
universally gave it full credit. Even to this day, they never
hear a thunder- storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaats-
kill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their
game of nine-pins : and it is a common wish of all henpecked
husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their
hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van
Winkle's flagon.

NOTE. — The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr. Knicker-
bocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart and
the Kypphauser mountain; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the
tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity.

" The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I
give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been
very subject to marvellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger
stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson, all of which were too well authenti-
cated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when
last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on
every other point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the
bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and
signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond
the possibility of doubt.1

D. K."

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA.

" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong
man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mew-
ing her mighty youth, and kindling her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam." —
MILTON ON THE LIBERTY OP THE PRESS.

IT is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary
animosity daily growing up between England and America.
Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the
United States, and the London press has teemed with volumes
of travels through the Republic ; but they seem intended to
diffuse error rather than knowledge ; and so successful have
they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse be-
tween the nations, there is no people concerning whom the
great mass of the British public have less pure information, or
entertain more numerous prejudices.

i Appendix, Note 1.

42 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

English travellers are the best and the worst in the world.
Where no motives of pride or interest intervene, none can equal
them for profound and philosophical views of society, or faith-
ful and graphical descriptions of external objects ; but when
either the interest or reputation of their own country comes in
collision with that of another, they go to the opposite extreme,
and forget their usual probity and candor, in the indulgence of
splenetic remark, and an illiberal spirit of ridicule.

Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more
remote the country described. I would place implicit confi-
dence in an Englishman's description of the regions beyond the
cataracts of the Nile ; of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea ;
of the interior of India ; or of any other tract which other trav-
ellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their
fancies. But I would cautiously receive his account of his
immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which he is
in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be
disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices.

It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited
by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philo-
sophical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from Eng-
land to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study
the manners and customs of barbarous nations, with which she
can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure ; it has
been left to the broken-down tradesman, the scheming adven-
turer, the wandering mechanic, the Manchester and Birming-
ham agent, to be her oracles respecting America. From such
sources she is content to receive her information respecting a
country in a singular state of moral and physical development ;
a country in which one of the greatest political experiments in
the history of the world is now performing, and which presents
the most profound and momentous studies to the statesman
and the philosopher.

That such men should give prejudicial accounts of America is
1 not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contempla-
tion are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national
character is yet in a state of fermentation : it may have its froth-
iness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and whole-
some : it has already given proofs of powerful and generous
qualities ; and the whole promises to settle clown into something
substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating to
strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indications of admirable
properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers ; who are
only affected by the little asperities incident to its present sit-

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA. 43

nation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of
things ; of those matters which come in contact with their pri-
vate interests and personal gratifications. They miss some of
the snug conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an
old, highly-finished, and over-populous state of society ; where
the ranks of useful labor are crowded, and many earn a painful
and servile subsistence, by studying the very caprices of appe-
tite and self-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are
all-important in the estimation of narrow minds ; which either
do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more
than counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused
blessings.

They ma}^, perhaps, have been disappointed .in some unrea-
sonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured
America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver
abounded, and the natives were lacking in sagacity ; and where
they were to become strangely and suddenly rich, in some un-
foreseen but easy manner. The same weakness of mind that
indulges absurd expectations, produces petulance in disappoint-
ment. Such persons become embittered against the country on
finding that there, as everywhere else, a man must sow before
he can reap ; must win wealth by industry and talent ; and must
contend with the common difficulties of nature, and the shrewd-
ness of an intelligent and enterprising people.

Perhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospitality, or from
the prompt disposition to cheer and countenance the stranger,
prevalent among my countrymen, they may have been treated
with unwonted respect in America ; and, having been accus-
tomed all their lives to consider themselves below the surface
of good society, and brought up in a servile feeling of inferior-
ity, they become arrogant on the common boon of civility ; they
attribute to the lowliness of others their own elevation ; and
underrate a society where there are no artificial distinctions,
and where by any chance such individuals as themselves can
rise to consequence.

One would suppose, however, that information coming from
such sources, on a subject where the truth is so desirable, would
be received with caution by the censors of the press ; that the
motives of these men, their veracity, their opportunities of in-
quiry and observation, and their capacities for judging correctly,
would be rigorously scrutinized, before their evidence was ad-
mitted, in such sweeping extent against a kindred nation. The
very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes a striking
instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the

44 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

vigilance with which English critics will examine the credibility
of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant, and
comparatively unimportant, country. How warily will they
compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of
a ruin ; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy in
these contributions of merely curious knowledge ; while they
will receive, with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the gross
misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, concerning a
country with which their own is placed in the most important
and delicate relations. Nay, they will even make these apocry-
phal volumes text-books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and
an ability worthy of a more generous cause.

I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and hackneyed
topic ; nor should I have adverted to it, but for the undue in-
terest apparently taken in it by my countrymen, and certain
injurious effects which I apprehend it might produce upon the
national feeling. We attach too much consequence to these
attacks. They cannot do us any essential injury. The tissue
of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, are like
cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our coun-
try continually outgrows them. One falsehood after another
falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day we
live a whole volume of refutation. All the writers of England
united, if we could for a moment suppose their great minds
stooping to so unworthy a combination, could not conceal our
rapidly growing importance and matchless prosperity. They
could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical
and local, but also to moral causes ; — to the political liberty,
the general diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound,
moral, and religious principles, which give force and sustained
energy to the character of a people ; and which, in fact, have
been the acknowledged and wonderful supporters of their own
national power and glory.

But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of
England ? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the
contumely she has endeavored to cast upon us? It is not in
the opinion of England alone that honor lives, and reputation
has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of a nation's
fame : with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's deeds, and
from their collective testimony is national glory or national
disgrace established.

For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but little
importance whether England does us justice or not ; it is, per-
haps, of far more importance to herself. She is instilling anger

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA. 45

and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow
with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. If in Amer-
ica, as some of her writers are laboring to convince her, she is
hereafter to find an invidious rival and a gigantic foe, she may
thank those very writers for having provoked rivalship, and irri-
tated hostility. Every one knows the all-pervading influence
of literature at the present day, and how much the opinions and
passions of mankind are under its control. The mere contests
of the sword are temporary ; their wounds are but in the flesh,
and it is the pride of the generous to forgive and forget them ;
but the slanders of the pen pierce to the heart ; they rankle
longest iii the noblest spirits ; they dwell ever present in the
mind, and render it morbidly sensitive to the most trifling collis-
ion. It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hos-
tilities between two nations ; there exists, most commonly, a
previous jealousy and ill-will, a predisposition to take offence.
Trace these to their cause, and how often will they be found to
originate in the mischievous effusions of mercenary writers ;
who, secure in their closets, and for ignominious bread, concoct
and circulate the venom that is to inflame the generous and the
brave.

I am not laying too much stress upon this point ; for it
applies most emphatically to our particular case. Over no
nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over
the people of America ; for the universal education of the
poorest classes makes every individual a reader. There is
nothing published in England on the subject of our country,
that does not circulate through ever}7 part of it. There is not
a calumny dropt from an English pen, nor an unworthy sarcasm
uttered by an English statesman, that does not go to blight
good-will, and add to the mass of latent resentment. Possess-
ing then, as England does, the fountain-head whence the litera-
ture of the language flows, how completely is it in her power,
and how truly is it her duty, to make it the medium of
amiable and magnanimous feeling — a stream where the two
nations might meet together, and drink in peace and kindness.
Should she, however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness,
the time may come when she may repent her folly. The pres-
ent friendship of America may be of but little moment to her ;
but the future destinies of that country do not admit of a doubt :
over those of England, there lower some shadows of uncer-
tainty. Should, then, a day of gloom arrive — should these
reverses overtake her from which the proudest empires have
not been exempt — she may look back with regret at her inf atu~

46 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

ation, in repulsing from her side a nation she might have
grappled to her bosom, and thus destroying her only chance
for real friendship beyond the boundaries of her own dominions.

There is a general impression in England, that the people of
the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is one
of the errors which have been diligently propagated by designing
writers. There is, doubtless, considerable political hostility, and
a general soreness at the illiberality of the English press ; but,
generally speaking, the prepossessions of the people are
strongly in favor of England. Indeed, at one time they
amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd degree of
bigotry. The bare name of Englishman was a passport to the
confidence and hospitality of every family, and too often gave
a transient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful.
Throughout the wuntry, there was something of enthusiasm
connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a
hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration, as the land of
our forefathers — • the august repository of the monuments and
antiquities of our race — the birth-place and mausoleum of the
sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own coun-
try, there was none in whose glory we more delighted — none
whose good opinion we were more anxious to possess — none
toward which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm
consanguinity. Even during the late war, whenever there was
the least opportunity for kind feelings to spring forth, it was
the delight" of the generous spirits of our country to show, that
in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of
future friendship.

Is all this to be at an end ? Is this golden band of kindred
sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever? —
Perhaps it is for the best — it may dispel an illusion which
might have kept us in mental vassalage ; which might have in-
terfered occasionally with our true interests, and prevented
the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard to give up
the kindred tie ! — and there are feelings dearer than interest —
closer to the heart than pride — that will still make us cast back
a look of regret as we wander farther and farther from the
paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that
would repel the affections of the child.

Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the conduct of
England may be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on
our part would be equally ill-judged. I speak not of a prompt
and spirited vindication of our country, nor the keenest castiga-
tion of her slanderers — but I allude to a disposition to retaliate

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA. 47

in kind, to retort sarcasm and inspire prejudice, which seems
to be spreading widely among our writers. Let us guard par-
ticularly against such a temper ; for it would double the evil,
instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is so easy and in-
viting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm ; but it is a paltry
and unprofitable contest. It is the alternative of a morbid
mind, fretted into petulance, rather than warmed into indigna-
tion. If England is willing to permit the mean jealousies of
trade, or the rancorous animosities of politics, to deprave the
integrity of her press, and poison the fountain of public opin-
ion, let us beware of her example. She may deem it her inter-
est to diffuse error, and engender antipathy, for the purpose of
checking emigration ; we have no purpose of the kind to serve.
Neither have we any spirit of national jealousy to gratify ; for
as yet, in all our rivalships with England, we are the rising and
the gaining party. There can be no end to answer, therefore,
but the gratification of resentment — a mere spirit of retalia-
tion ; and even that is impotent. Our retorts are never repub-
lished in England ; they fall short, therefore, of their aim ; but
they foster a querulous and peevish temper among our writers ;
they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and sow thorns
and brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they
circulate through our own country, and, as far as they have
effect, excite virulent national prejudices. This last is the evil
most especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely
by public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve
the purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth
is knowledge ; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a
prejudice, wilfully saps the foundation of his country's strength.

The members of a republic, above all other men, should be
candid and dispassionate. They are, individually, portions of
the sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should be enabled
to come to all questions of national concern with calm and un-
biassed judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations
with England, we must have more frequent questions of a difficult
and delicate character with her, than with any other nation; ques-
tions that affect the most acute and excitable feelings : and as,
in the adjusting of these, our national measures must ultimately
be determined by popular sentiment, we cannot be too anxiously
attentive to purify it from all latent passion or prepossession.

Opening too, as we do, an asylum for strangers from every
portion of the earth, we should receive all with impartiality.
It should be our pride to exhibit an example of one nation, at
least, destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not

48 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

merely the overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and
noble courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion.

What have we to do with national prejudices ? They are the
inveterate diseases of old countries, contracted in rude and
ignorant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, and
looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and hostility.
We, on the contrary, have sprung into national existence in an
enlightened and philosophic age, when the different parts of the
habitable world, and the various branches of the human family,
have been indefatigably studied and made known to each other ;
and we forego the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake
off the national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions,
of the old world.

But above all, let us not be influenced by any angry feelings,
so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really
excellent and amiable in the English character. We are a
young people, necessarily an imitative one, and must take our
examples and models, in a great degree, from the existing na-
tions of Europe. There is no country more worthy of our
study than England. The spirit of her constitution is most
analogous to ours. The manners of her people — their intellec-
tual activity — their freedom of opinion — their habits of think-
ing on those subjects which concern the dearest interests and
most sacred charities of private life, are all congenial to the
American character ; and, in fact, are all intrinsically excel-
lent : for it is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep
foundations of British prosperity are laid ; and however the
superstructure may be time-worn, or overrun by abuses, there
must be something solid in the basis, admirable in the materials,
and stable in the structure of an edifice that so long has tow-
ered unshaken amidst the tempests of the world.

Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, discarding all
feelings of irritation, and disdaining to retaliate the illiberal-
ity of British authors, to speak of the English nation without
prejudice, and with determined candor. While they rebuke the
indiscriminating bigotry with which some of our countrymen
admire and imitate every thing English, merely because it is
English, let them frankly point out what is really worthy of
approbation. We may thus place England before us as a per-
petual volume of reference, wherein are recorded sound deduc-
tions from ages of experience ; and while we avoid the errors
and absurdities which may have crept into the page, we may
draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, wherewith to
strengthen and to embellish our national character.

RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 49

RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.

Oh ! friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural pleasures past! — COWPER.

THE stranger who would form a correct opinion of the Eng-
lish character, must not confine his observations to the metrop-
olis. He must go forth into the country ; he must sojourn in
villages and hamlets ; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses,
cottages ; he must wander through parks and gardens ; along
hedges and green lanes ; he must loiter about country churches ;
attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals ; and cope
with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and
humors.

In some countries the large cities absorb the wealth and
fashion of the nation ; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant
and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost
entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary,
the metropolis is a mere gathering place, or general rendezvous,
of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the
year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and having indulged
this kind of carnival, return again to the apparently more con-
genial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are
therefore diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and
the most retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the different
ranks.

The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feel-
ing. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of na-
ture, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of
the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the
inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls
and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and
evince a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has his snug
retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often dis-
plays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-
garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the conduct
of his business, and the success of a commercial enterprise.
Even those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass
their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to have some-
thing that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In
the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-
room window resembles frequently a bank of flowers; every

50 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

spot capable of vegetation has its grass-plot and flower-bed ;
and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste,
and gleaming with refreshing verdure.

Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form
an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either
absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand engage-
ments that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this huge
metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly, a look of hurry
and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the
point of going somewhere else ; at the moment he is talking on
one subject, his mind is wandering to another ; and while pay-
ing a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize
time so as to pay the other visits allotted in the morning. An
immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men
selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meet-
ings, they can but deal briefly in commonplaces. They present
but the cold superficies of character — its rich and genial qual-
ities have no time to be warmed into a flow.

It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his
natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formal-
ities and negative civilities of town, throws off his habits of shy
reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to
collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite
life, and to banish its restraints. His country-seat abounds
with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful
gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses,
dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He
puts no constraint, either upon his guests or himself, but, in the
true spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and
leaves every one to partake according to his inclination.

The taste of the English in the cultivation of laud, and in
what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have
studied Nature intently, and discover an exquisite sense of
her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those
charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild soli-
tudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life.
They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and
spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes.

Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of Eng-
lish park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid
green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up
rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and wood-
land glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them ;
the hare, bounding away to the covert ; or the pheasant, sud'

RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 51

denly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in
natural meanderings, or expand into a glass}' lake — the seques-
tered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf
sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about
its limpid waters : while some rustic temple, or sylvan statue,
grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classic sanctity
to the seclusion.

These are but a few of the features of park scenery ; but
what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the
English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life.
The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty por-
tion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes
a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes
at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future
landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his
hand ; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect
are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of
some trees ; the cautious pruning of others ; the nice distribution
of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage ; the intro-
duction of a green slope of velvet turf ; the partial opening to a
peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water — all these are
managed with a delicate tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity,
like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a
favorite picture.

The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the
country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural
economy, that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer,
with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to
their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the
door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine
trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the
lattice ; the pot of flowers in the window ; the holly, providently
planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and
to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside:
— all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from
high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public
mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage,
it must be the cottage of an English peasant.

The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the
English, has had a great and salutary effect upon the national
character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English
gentlemen. Instead of ,the softness and effeminacy which
characterize the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit
a union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and

52 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to
their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly
the invigorating recreations of the country. These hardy exer-
cises produce also a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a
manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and
dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can never
entirely destroy. In the country, too, the different orders of
society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to
blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distinctions
between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable,
as in the cities. The manner in which property has been dis-
tributed into small estates and farms, has established a regular
gradation from the nobleman, through the classes of gentry,
small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, down to the
laboring peasantry ; and while it has thus banded the extremes
of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a
spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so
universally the case at present as it was formerly ; the larger
estates having, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller,
and, in some parts of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy
race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but cas-
ual breaks in the general system I have mentioned.

In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. It
leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beau-
ty ; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated
upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences.
Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar.
The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in
an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does
when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He
lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the
distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest, heart-felt
enjoyments of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of
the country bring men more and more together ; and the sound
of hound and horn blend all feelings into harmon}7. I believe
this is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are more
popular among the inferior orders in England, than they are in
any other country ; and why the latter have endured so many
excessive pressures and extremities, without repining more
generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege.

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society, may also
be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British litera-
ture ; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life ; those
incomparable descriptions of Nature, that abound in the British

RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 53

poets — that have continued down from "the Flower and the
Leaf" of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the
freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral
writers of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature
an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general
charms ; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her
— they have wooed her in her most secret haunts — they have
watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in
the breeze — a leaf could not rustle to the ground — a diamond
drop could not patter in the stream — a fragrance could not ex-
hale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints
to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned
and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful
morality.

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupa-
tions, has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great
part of the island is rather level, and would be monotonous,
were it not for the charms of culture ; but it is studded and
gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered
with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and
sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural
repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and
moss-grown cottage is a picture ; and as the roads are continu-
ally winding, and the view is shut in b}* groves and hedges, the
eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes
of captivating loveliness.

The great charm, however, of English scenery, is the moral
feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind
with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established princi-
ples, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Every thing seems
to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence.
The old church, of remote architecture, with its low massive
portal ; its Gothic tower ; its windows, rich with tracery and
painted glass, in scrupulous preservation — its stately monu-
ments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of
the present lords of the soil — its tombstones, recording suc-
cessive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still
plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar — the par-
sonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired
and altered in the tastes of various ages and occupants — the
stile and footpath leading from the church-yard, across pleasant
fields, and along shady hedge-rows, according to an immemora-
ble right of way — the neighboring village, with its venerable
its public green, sheltered by trees, under which the

54 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

forefathers of the present race have sported — the antique
family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but
looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene —
all these common features of English landscape evince a calm
and settled security, an hereditary transmission of home-bred
virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly
for the moral character of the nation.

It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when the bell is
sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the
peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest
cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to
church ; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the even-
ings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to
exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their
own hands have spread around them.

It is this sweet home feeling, this settled repose of affection
in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the
steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments ; and I cannot close
these desultory remarks better than by quoting the words of a
modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable
felicity.

Through each gradation, from the castled hall,
The city- dome, the villa crown 'd with shade,
But chief from modest mansions numberless,
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life,
Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof 'd shed ;
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes
Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place;
Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove,
(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard)
Can centre in a little quiet nest
All that desire would fry for through the earth;
That can, the world eluding, be itself
A world enjoy'd ; that wants no witnesses
But its own sharers, and approving Heaven;
That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft,
Smiles, though 'tis looking only at the sky.1

1 From a poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Reverend Rann
Kennedy, A.M.

THE BROKEN HEART. 55

THE BROKEN HEART.

I never heard

Of any true affection, but 'twas nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose. — MIDDLETON.

IT is a common practice with those who have outlived the
susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the
gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories,
and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of
novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have
induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me, that
however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen
by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the
arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths
of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become im-
petuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed,
I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go to the full extent
of his doctrines. Shall I confess it? — I believe in broken
hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love ! I do
not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex ;
but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman
into an early grave.

Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature
leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love
is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in
the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for
space in the world's thought, and dominion over his fellow-men.
But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The
heart is her world ; it is there her ambition strives for empire
— it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends
forth her sympathies on adventure ; she embarks her whole
soul in the traffic of affection ; and if shipwrecked, her case is
hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.

To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some
bitter pangs : it wounds some feelings of tenderness — it blasts
some prospects of felicity ; but he is an active being ; he may
dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may
plunge into the tide of pleasure ; or, if the scene of disappoint-
ment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode
at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, can
" fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest,"

56 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and medi-
tative life. She ie more the companion of her own thoughts
and feelings ; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow,
where shall she look for consolation ? Her lot is to be wooed
and won ; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some
fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned,
and left desolate.

How many bright eyes grow dim — how many soft cheeks
grow pale — how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb,
and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness ! As
the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and conceal
the arrow that is preying on its vitals — so is it the nature of
woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection.
The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even
when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself ; but when
otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there
lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With
her, the desire of the heart has failed — the great charm of
existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises
which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide
of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is
broken — the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melan-
choly dreams — " dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her en-
feebled frame sinks under the slightest external injury. Look
for her, after a little while, and you find friendship weeping
over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but
lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should
so speedily be brought down to "darkness and the worm."
You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposi-
tion, that laid her low — but no one knows of the mental malady
which previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a
prey to the spoiler.

She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the
grove : graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the
worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering,
when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it droop-
Ing its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf ; until,
wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the
forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in
vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smit-
ten it with decay.

I have seen many instances of women running to waste and
self -neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost
as if they had been exhaled to heaven ; and have repeatedly

THE BROKEN HEART. 57

fancied that I could trace their deaths through the various de-
clensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy,
until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But
an instance of the kind was lately told to me ; the circum-
stances are well known in the country where they happened,
and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were
related.

Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E ,

the Irish patriot : it was too touching to be soon forgotten.
During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, and
executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep im-
pression on public sympathy.. He was so young — so intelli-
gent — so generous — so brave — so every thing that we are apt
to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so
lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he re-
pelled the charge of treason against his country — the eloquent
vindication of his name — and his pathetic appeal to posterity,
in the hopeless hour of condemnation — all these entered deeply
into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the
stern policy that dictated his execution.

But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be impossi-
ble to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes he had
won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daugh-
ter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the
disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early love. When
every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him ; when blasted
in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name,
she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If,
then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes,
what must have been the agony of her, whose whole soul was
occupied by his image ? Let those tell who have had the portals
of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they
most loved on earth — who have sat at its threshold, as one
shut out in a cold and lonely wrorld, whence all that was most
lovely and loving had departed.

But then the horrors of such a grave ! — so frightful, so dis-
honored ! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that
could soothe the pang of separation — none of those tender,
though melancholy circumstances, which endear the parting scene
— nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, like
the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of
anguish.

To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had
incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attach-

58 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

ment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could the
sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so
shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced
no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and
generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing atten-
tions were paid her, by families of wealth and distinction.
She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occupa-
tion and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from
the tragical story of her loves. But it was all in vain. There
are some strokes of calamity which scathe and scorch the soul —
which penetrate to the vital seat of happiness — and blast it,
never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected
to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but was as much alone there,
as in the depths of solitude; walking about in a sad reverie,
apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried
with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments
of friendship, and " heeded not the song of the charmer, charm
he never so wisely."

The person who told me her story had seen her at a mas-
querade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness
more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To
find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all
around is gay — to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth,
and looking so wan and wo-begone, as if it had tried in vain to
cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow.
After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd
with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the
steps of an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a
vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish scene,
she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble
a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice ; but on this
occasion it was so simple, so touching — it breathed forth such
a soul of wretchedness — that she drew a crowd, mute and
silent, around her, and melted every one into tears.

The story of one so true and tender could not but excite
great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It
completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his
addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead,
could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his
attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the
memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his
suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He
was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of
her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing

THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. 59

on the kkidness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded
in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance, that
her heart was unalterably another's.

He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of
scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She
was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a
happy one ; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring
melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted
away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into
the grave, the victim of a broken heart.

It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, com-
posed the following lines :

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

And lovers around her are sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,

For her heart in his grave is lying.

She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains,

Every note which he loved awaking —
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking !

He had lived for his love — for his country he died,

They were all that to life had entwined him —
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,

Nor long will his love stay behind him !

Oh ! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,

When they promise a glorious morrow ;
They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west,

From her own loved island of sorrow !

THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING.

"If that severe doom of Synesius be true — 'it is a greater offence to steal dead
men's labors than their clothes,' — what shall become of most writers?" — BURTON'S
Anatomy of Melancholy.

I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecunditj- of the press,
and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature
seemed to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, should teem with
voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in
the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and
he is continually finding out some very simple cause for some

60 THE ^KETCH-BOOK.

great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, in my peregri-
nations about this great metropolis, to blunder upon a scene
which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of the book-making
craft, and at once put an end to my astonishment.

I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons
of the British Museum, with that listlessness with which one is
apt to saunter about a museum in warm weather ; sometimes loll-
ing over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying the
hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes trying,
with nearly equal success, to comprehend the allegorical paint-
ings on the lofty ceilings. Whilst I was gazing about in this
idle way, my attention was attracted to a distant door, at the
end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, but every now
and then it would open, and some strange-favored being, gen-
erally clothed in black, would steal forth, and glide through
the rooms, without noticing any of the surrounding objects.
There was an air of mystery about this that piqued my languid
curiosity, and I determined to attempt the passage of that
strait, and to explore the unknown regions beyond. The door
yielded to my hand, with that facility with which the por-
tals of enchanted castles yield to the adventurous knight-
errant. I found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded with
great cases of venerable books. Above the cases, and just
under the cornice, were arranged a great number of black-
looking portraits of ancient authors. About the room were
placed long tables, with stands for reading and writing, at
which sat many pale, studious personages, poring intently
over dusty volumes, rummaging among mouldy manuscripts,
and taking copious notes of their contents. A hushed still-
ness reigned through this mysterious apartment, excepting
that you might hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, or,
occasionally, the deep sigh of one of these sages, as he shifted
his position to turn over the page of an old folio; doubtless
arising from that hollowness and flatulency incident to learned
research.

Now and then one of these personages would write something
on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar
would appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of
the room, and return shortly loaded with ponderous tomes,
upon which the other would fall, tooth and nail, with famished
voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had happened upon a
body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of occult sciences.
The scene reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philoso-
pher, shut up in an enchanted library, in the bosom of a

f

THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. 61

mountain, which opened only once a year ; where he made the
spirits of the place bring him books of all kinds of dark
knowledge, so that at the end of the year, whem the
magic portal once more swung open on its hinges, he issued
forth so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar
above the heads of the multitude, and to control the powers of
Nature.

My curiosity being now fully aroused, 1 whispered to one of
the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged
an interpretation of the strange scene before me. A few words
were sufficient for the purpose : — I found that these mysterious
personages, whom I had mistaken for magi, were principally
authors, and in the very act of manufacturing books. I was,
in fact, in the reading-room of the great British Library,
an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages,
many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom
read ; one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature,
to which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of
classic lore, or "pure English, undefiled," wherewith to swell
their own scanty rills of thought.

Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a corner,
and watched the process of this book manufactory. I noticed
one lean, bilious-looking wight, who sought none but the most
worm-eaten volumes, printed in black-letter. He was evidently
constructing some work of profound erudition, that would be
purchased by every man who wished to be thought learned,
placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, or laid open
upon his table — but never read. I observed him, now and
then, draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and
gnaw ; whether it was his dinner, or whether he was endeavor-
ing to keep off that exhaustion of the stomach, produced by
much pondering over dry works, I leave to harder students
than myself to determine.

There was one dapper little gentleman in bright colored
clothes, with a chirping gossiping expression of countenance
who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with
his bookseller. After considering him attentively, I recognized
in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneous works, which bus-
tled off well with the trade. I was curious to see how he man-
ufactured his wares- He made more stir and show of business
than any of the others ; dipping into various books, fluttering
over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a
morsel out of another, " line upon line, precept upon precept,
here a little and there a little." The contents of his book

62 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches' caldron
in Macbeth. It was here a finger and there a thumb, toe of
frog and blind worm's sting, with his own gossip poured in like
" baboon's blood," to make the medley " slab and good."

After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be im-
planted in authors for wise purposes ? may it not be the way in
which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge
and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the
inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced?
We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided
for the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws
of certain birds ; so that animals, which, in themselves, are
little better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers
of the orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers
to disperse and perpetuate her blessings. In like manner, the
beauties and fine thoughts of ancient and obsolete authors are
caught up by these flights of predatory writers, and cast forth,
again to flourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant tract of
time. Many of their works, also, undergo a kind of metempsy-
chosis, and spring up under new forms. What was formerly a
ponderous history, revives in the shape of a romance — an old
legend changes into a modern play — and a sober philosophical
treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and
sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American
woodlands; where we burn down a forest of stately pines, a
progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place ; and we never
see the prostrate trunk of a tree, mouldering into soil, but it
gives birth to a whole tribe of fungi.

Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into
which ancient writers descend ; they do but submit to the great
law of Nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes of mat-
ter shall be limited in their duration, but which decrees, also,
that their elements shall never perish. Generation after gen-
eration, both in animal and vegetable life, passes away, but the
vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species con-
tinue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and
having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they
sleep with their fathers ; that is to say, with the authors who
preceded them — and from whom they had stolen.

Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had leaned
my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether it was
owing to the soporific emanations from these works ; or to the
profound quiet of the room ; or to the lassitude arising from
much wandering; or to an unlucky habit of napping at im-

ART OF BOOK-MAKING. 63

proper times and places, with which I am grievously afflicted, so
it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my imagination
continued busy, and indeed the same scene remained before
my mind's eye, only a little changed in some of the details.
I dreamt that the chamber was still decorated with the por-
traits of ancient authors, but that the number was increased. The
long tables had disappeared, and in place of the sage magi, I
beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such as may be seen plying:
about the great repository of cast-off clothes, Monmouth-street-
Whenever they seized upon a book, by one of those incongru-
ities common to dreams, methought it turned into a garment of
foreign or antique fashion, with which they proceeded to equip
themselves. I noticed, however, that no one pretended to
clothe himself from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from
one, a cape from another, a skirt from a third, thus decking
himself out piecemeal, while some of his original rags would
peep out from among his borrowed finery.

There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed
ogling several mouldy polemical writers through an eye-glass.
He soon contrived to slip on the voluminous mantle of one of
the old fathers, and having purloined the gray beard of another,
endeavored to look exceedingly wise ; but the smirking common-
place of his countenance set at naught all the trappings of wis-
dom. One sickly-looking gentleman was busied embroidering
a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn out of several old
court-dresses of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Another had
trimmed himself magnificently from an illuminated manuscript,
had stuck a nosegay in his bosom, culled from " The Paradise
of Daintie Devices," and having put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on
one side of his head, strutted off with an exquisite air of vulgar
elegance. A third, who was but of puny dimensions, had bol-
stered himself out bravely with the spoils from several obscure
tracts of philosophy, so that he had a very imposing front, but
he was lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had
patched his small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a Latin
author.

There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who only
helped themselves- to a gem or so, which sparkled among their
own ornaments, without eclipsing them. Some, too, seemed
to contemplate the costumes of the old writers, merely to im-
bibe their principles of taste, and to catch their air and spirit ;
but I grieve to say, that too many were apt to array themselves,
from top to toe, in the patch-work manner I have mentioned.
I shall not omit to speak of one genius, in drab breeches and

64 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a violent propensity to
the pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had been confined to
the classic haunts of Primrose Hill, and the solitudes of the
Regent's Park. He had decked himself in wreaths and ribbons
from all the old pastoral poets, and hanging his head on one
side, went about with a fantastical, lack-a-daisical air, " bab-
bling about green fields." But the personage that most struck
my attention, was a pragmatical old gentleman, in clerical
robes, with a remarkably large and square, but bald head.
He entered the room wheezing and puffing, elbowed his way
through the throng, with a look of sturdy self-confidence, and
having laid hands upon a thick Greek quarto, clapped it
upon his head, and swept majestically away in a formidable
frizzled wig.

In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly
resounded from every side, of "thieves! thieves!" I looked,
and lo ! the portraits about the walls became animated ! The
old authors thrust out first a head, then a shoulder, from the
canvas, looked down curiously, for an instant, upon the motley
throng, and then descended, with fury in their eyes, to claim
their rifled property. The scene of scampering and hubbub
that ensued baffles all description. The unhappy culprits
endeavored in vain to escape with their plunder. On one
side might be seen half-a-dozen old monks, stripping a modern
professor ; on another, there was sad devastation carried into the
ranks of modern dramatic writers. Beaumont and Fletcher,
side by side, raged round the field like Castor and Pollux, and
sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more wonders than when a volun-
teer with the army in Flanders. As to the dapper little com-
piler of farragos, mentioned some time since, he had arrayed
himself in as many patches and colors as Harlequin, and
there was as fierce a contention of claimants about him, as
about the dead body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see many
men, to whom I had been accustomed to look up with awe and
reverence, fain to steal off with scarce a rag to cover their
nakedness. Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical
old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig, who was scrambling
away in sore affright with half a score of authors in full cry
after him. They were close upon his haunches ; in a twinkling
off went his wig ; at every turn some strip of raiment was
peeled away ; until in a few moments, from his domineering
pomp, he shrunk into a little pursy, " chopped bald shot," and
made his exit with only a few tags and rags fluttering at his
back.

A ROYAL POET. 65

There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe of this
learned Theban, that I burst into an immoderate fit of laughter,
which broke the whole illusion. The tumult and the scuffle
were at an end. The chamber resumed its usual appearance.
The old authors shrunk back into their picture-frames, and
hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short, I found
myself wide awake in my corner, with the whole assemblage
of bookworms «gazing at me with astonishment. Nothing of
the dream had been real but my burst of laughter, a sound
never before heard in that grave sanctuary, and so abhorrent
to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify the fraternity.

The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded whether
I had a card of admission. At first I did not comprehend him,
but I soon found that the library was a kind of literary " pre-
serve," subject to game laws, and that no one must presume
to hunt there without special license and permission. In a
word, I stood convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was
glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should have a whole
pack of authors let loose upon me.

[ A ROYAL POET.

Though your body be confined

And soft love a prisoner bound,
Yet the beauty of your mind
Neither check nor chain hath found.
Look out nobly, then, and dare
Even the fetters that you wear. — FLETCHER.

ON a soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I made
an excursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied
and poetical associations. The very external aspect of the
proucl old pile is enough to inspire high thought. It rears its
irregular walls and massive towers, like a mural crown round
the brow of a lofty ridge, waves its royal banner in the clouds,
and looks down with a lordly air upon the surrounding world.

On this morning, the weather was of that voluptuous vernal
kind which calls forth all the latent romance of a man's tem-
perament, filling his mind with music, and disposing him to
quote poetry and dream of beauty. In wandering through the
magnificent saloons and long echoing galleries of the castle,
I passed with indifference by whole rows of portraits of war-

66 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

riors and statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where hang
the likenesses of the beauties which graced the gay court of
Charles the Second ; and as I gazed upon them, depicted with
amorous half -dishevelled tresses, and the sleepy eye of love, I
blessed the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, which had thus enabled me
to bask in the reflected rays of beauty. In traversing also the
" large green courts," with sunshine beaming on the gray walls
and glancing along the velvet turf, my mind was engrossed
with the image of the tender, the gallant, but hapless Surrey,
and his account of his loiterings about them in his stripling days,
when enamoured of the Lady Geraldine —

" With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower,
With easie sighs, such as men draw in love."

In this mood of mere poetical susceptibilit}', I visited the
ancient keep of the castle, where James the First of Scotland,
the pride and theme of Scottish poets and historians, was for
many years of his youth detained a prisoner of state. It is a
large gray tower, that has stood the brunt of ages, and is still
in good preservation. It stands on a mound which elevates it
above the other parts of the castle, and a great flight of steps
leads to the interior. In the armory, a Gothic hall, furnished
with weapons of various kinds and ages, I was shown a coat
of armor hanging against the wall, which had once belonged to
James. Hence I was conducted up a staircase to a suite of
apartments of faded magnificence, hung with storied tapestry,
which formed his prison, and the scene of that passionate and
fanciful amour, which has woven into the web of his story the
magical hues of poetry and fiction.

The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate prince is
highly romantic. At the tender age of eleven, he was sent
from home by his father, Robert III., and destined for the
French court, to be reared under the eye of the French mon-
arch, secure from the treachery and danger that surrounded
the royal house of Scotland. It was his mishap, in the course
of his voyage, to fall into the hands of the English, and he was
detained prisoner by Henry IV., notwithstanding that a truce ex-
isted between the two countries.

The intelligence of his capture, coming in the train of many
sorrows and disasters, proved fatal to his unhappy father.

"The news," we are told, "was brought to him while at
supper, and did so overwhelm him with grief, that he was almost
ready to give up the ghost into the hands of the servants that

A EOYAL POET. 67

attended him. But being carried to his bed-chamber, he ab-
stained from all food, and in three days died of hunger and
grief, at Rothesay."1

James was detained in captivity above eighteen years ; but
though deprived of personal liberty, he was treated with the
respect due to his rank. Care was taken to instruct him in all
the branches of useful knowledge cultivated at that period, and
to give him those mental and personal accomplishments deemed
proper for a prince. Perhaps in this respect, his imprisonment
was an advantage, as it enabled him to apply himself the more
exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to imbibe that rich
fund of knowledge, and to cherish those elegant tastes, which
have given such a lustre to his memory. The picture drawn
of him in early life, by the Scottish historians, is highly capti-
vating, and seems rather the description of a hero of romance,
than of a character in real history. He was well learnt, we are
told, " to fight with the sword, to joust, to tournay, to wrestle,
to sing and dance ; he was an expert mediciner, right crafty in
playing both of lute and harp, and sundry other instruments of
music, and was expert in grammar, oratory, and poetry." 2

With this combination of manly and delicate accomplish-
ments, fitting him to shine both in active and elegant life, and
calculated to give him an intense relish for joyous existence, it
must have been a severe trial, in an age of bustle and chivalry,
to pass the spring-time of his years in monotonous captivity.
It was the good fortune of James, however, to be gifted with a
powerful poetic fancy, and to be visited in his prison by the
choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds corrode, and
grow inactive, under the loss of personal liberty ; others grow
morbid and irritable ; but it is the nature of the poet to become
tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He
banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the
captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.

Have you not seen the nightingale,

A pilgrim coop'd into a cage,
How doth she chant her wonted tale,

In that her lonely hermitage !

Even there her charming melody doth prove
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.8

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it
is irrepressible, unconfinable ; that when the real world is shut

1 Buchanan. - Ballenden's translation of Hector Boyce. 3 Roger L'Estrange.

68 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

out, it can create a world for itself, and, with necromantic
power, can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant
visions, to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of
the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that
lived round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he con-
ceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem ; and we may con-
sider the "King's Quair,"1 composed by James during his
captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings
forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison,
house.

The subject of the poem is his love for the lady Jane Beau-
fort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and a princess of fehe
blood-royal of England, of whom he became enamoured in the
course of his captivity. What gives it a peculiar value, is, that
it may be considered a transcript of the royal bard's true feel-
ings, and the story of his real loves and fortunes. It is not
often that sovereigns write poetry, or that poets deal in fact.
It is gratifying to the pride of a common man, to find a mon-
arch thus suing, as it were, for admission into his closet, and
seeking to win his favor by administering to his pleasures. It
is a proof of the honest equality of intellectual competition,
which strips off all the trappings of factitious dignity, brings
the candidate down to a level with his fellow-men, and obliges
him to depend on his own native powers for distinction. It is
curious, too, to get at the history of a monarch's heart, and to
find the simple affections of human nature throbbing under the
ermine. But James had learnt to be a poet before he was a
king ; he was schooled in adversity, and reared in the company
of his own thoughts. Monarchs have seldom time to parley
with their hearts, or to meditate their minds into poetry ; and
had James been brought up amidst the adulation and gayety of
a court, we should never, in all probability, have had such a
poem as the Quair.

I have been particularly interested by those parts of the poem
which breathe his immediate thoughts concerning his situation,
or which are connected with the apartment in the Tower. They
have thus a personal and local charm, and are given with such
circumstantial truth, as to make the reader present with the cap-
tive in his prison, and the companion of his meditations.

Such is the account which he gives of his weariness of spirit,
and of the incident which first suggested the idea of writing the
poem. It was the still mid-watch of a clear moonlight night ;

1 Quair, an old terra for Book-

A ROYAL POET. 69

the stars, he says, were twinkling as fire in the high vault
of heaven, and "Cynthia rinsing her golden locks in Aqua-
rius" —he lay in bed wakeful and restless, and took a book to
beguile the tedious hours. The book he chose was Boetius'
Consolations of Philosophy, a work popular among the writers
of that day, and which had been translated by his great proto-
type Chaucer. From the high eulogium in which he indulges,
it is evident this was one of his favorite volumes while in
prison ; and indeed, it is an admirable text-book for meditation
under adversity. It is the legacy of a noble and enduring
spirit, purified by sorrow and suffering, bequeathing to its suc-
cessors in calamity the maxims of sweet morality, and the trains
of eloquent but simple reasoning, by which it was 'enabled to
bear up against the various ills of life. It is a talisman which
the unfortunate may treasure up in his bosom, or, like the good
King James, lay upon his nightly pillow.

After closing the volume, he turns its contents over in his
mind, and gradually falls into a fit of musing on the fickleness
of fortune, the vicissitudes of his own life, and the evils that
had overtaken him even in his tender youth. Suddenly he
hears the bell ringing to matins, but its sound chiming in with
his melancholy fancies, seems to him like a voice exhorting him
to write his story. In the spirit of poetic errantry, he deter-
mines to comply with this intimation ; he therefore takes pen
in hand, makes with it a sign of the cross, to implore a bene-
diction, and sallies forth into the fairy land of poetry. There
is something extremely fanciful in all this, and it is interesting
as furnishing a striking and beautiful instance of the simple
manner in which whole trains of poetical thought are sometimes
awakened, and literary enterprises suggested to the mind.

In the course of his poem, he more than once bewails the
peculiar hardness of his fate, thus doomed to lonely and inac-
tive life, and shut up from the freedom and pleasure of the
world, in which the meanest animal indulges unrestrained.
There is a sweetness, however, in his very complaints ; they
are the lamentations of an amiable and social spirit, at being-
denied the indulgence of its kind and generous propensities ;
there is nothing in them harsh or exaggerated ; they flow with
a natural and touching pathos, and are perhaps rendered more
touching by their simple brevity. They contrast finely with
those elaborate and iterated repinings which we sometimes meet
with in poetry, the effusions of morbid minds, sickening under
miseries of their own creating, and venting their bitterness upon
an unoffending world. James speaks of his privations with

70 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

acute sensibility ; but having mentioned them, passes on, as if
his manly mind disdained to brood over unavoidable calamities.
When such a spirit breaks forth into complaint, however brief,
we are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the
murmur. We sympathize with James, a romantic, active, and
accomplished prince, cut off in the lustihood of youth from all
the enterprise, the noble uses and vigorous delights of life, as
we do with Milton, alive to all the beauties of nature and glories
of art, when he breathes forth brief but deep-toned lamenta-
tions over his perpetual blindness.

Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic artifice, we
might almost have suspected that these lowerings of gloomy
reflection were meant as preparative to the brightest scene of
his story, and to contrast with that refulgence of light and love-
liness, that exhilarating accompaniment of bird, and song, and
foliage, and flower, and all the revel of the year, with which he
ushers in the lady of his heart. It is this scene in particular
which throws all the magic of romance about the old castle
keep. He had risen, he s'ays, at day-break, according to cus-
tom, to escape from the dreary meditations of a sleepless pillow.
"Bewailing in his chamber thus alone," despairing of all joy
and remedy, " for, tired of thought, and wo-begone," he had
wandered to the window, to indulge the captive's miserable
solace, of gazing wistfully upon the world from which he is ex-
cluded. The window looked forth upon a small garden which
lay at the foot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot,
adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected from the
passing gaze by trees and hawthorn hedges.

Now was there made, fast by the tower's wall

A garden faire, and in the corners set,
An arbour green with wandis long and small

Railed about, and so with leaves beset
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,

That lyf 1 was none, walkyng there forbye,

That might within scarce any wight espye.

So thick the branches and the leves grene,

Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And midst of every arbour might be sene

The sharpe, grene, swete juniper,
Growing so faire with branches here and there,

That as it seemed to a lyf without,

The boughs did spread the arbour all about.

person.

A ROYAL POET. 71

And on the small green twistis ' set

The lytel swete uyghtingales, and sung,
So loud and clere, the hymnis consecrate

Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the garden and the wallis rung

Ryght of their song —

NOTE. — The language of the quotations is generally modernized.

It was the month of May, when every thing was in bloon\v
and he interprets the song of the nightingale into the language
of his enamoured feeling : —

Worship all ye that lovers be this May;

For of your bliss the kalends are begun,
And sing with us, away, winter, away,

Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun.

As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes of the
birds, he gradually relapses into one of those tender and undefin-
able reveries, which fill the youthful bosom in this delicious
season. He wonders what this love may be, of which* he has
so often read, and which thus seems breathed forth in the
quickening breath of May, and melting all nature into ecstasy
and song. If it really be so great a felicity, and if it be a boon
thus generally dispensed to the most insignificant beings, why
is he alone cut off from its enjoyments ?

Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be,

That love is of such noble rayght and kyude?
Loving his folke, and such prosperltee,

Is it of him, as we in books do find;
May he oure hertes setten 2 and unbynd :
Hath he upon oure hertes such maistrye?
Or is all this but feynit fantasye?
For giff he be of so grete excellence

That he of every wight hath care and charge,
What have I gilt3 to him, or done offence,

That I am thral'd and birdis go at large?

In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eye downward,
he beholds " the fairest and freshest young floure " that ever he
had seen. It is the lovely Lady Jane, walking in the garden to
enjoy the beauty of that "fresh May morrowe." Breaking
thus suddenly upon his sight in the moment of loneliness and
excited susceptibility, sfre at once captivates the fancy of the

1 Twistis, small boughs or twigs. 2 Setten, incline.

3 Gilt, what injury have I done, etc.

72 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

romantic prince, and becomes the object of bis wandering
wishes, the sovereign of his ideal world.

There is in this charming scene an evident resemblance to
the early part of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, where Palamon and
Arcite fall in love with Emilia, whom they see walking in the
garden of their prison. Perhaps the similarity of the actual
fact to the incident which he had read in Chaucer, may have
induced James to dwell on it in his poem. His description of
the Lady Jane is given in the picturesque and minute manner
of his master, and being, doubtless, taken from the life, is a
perfect portrait of a beauty of that day. He dwells with the
fondness of a lover on every article of her apparel, from the net
of pearl, splendent with emeralds and sapphires, that confined
her golden hair, even to the " goodly chaine of small orfev-
erye " 1 about her neck, whereby there hung a ruby in shape of
a heart, that seemed, he says, like a spark of fire burning upon
her white bosom. Her dress of white tissue was looped up, to
enable her to walk with more freedom. She was accompanied
by two female attendants, and about her sported a little hound
decorated with bells, probably the small Italian hound, of
exquisite symmetry, which was a parlor favorite and pet among
the fashionable dames of ancient times. James closes his
description by a burst of general eulogium :

In her was youth, beauty with humble port,

Bounty, richesse, and womanly feature,
God better knows than my pen can report,

Wisdom, largesse,2 estate,3 and cunning4 sure.
In every point so guided her measure,

In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,

That nature might no more her child advance.

The departure of the Lady Jane from the garden puts an
end to this transient riot of the heart. With her departs the
amorous illusion that had shed a temporary charm over the
scene of his captivity, and he relapses into loneliness, now ren-
dered tenfold more intolerable by this passing beam of unat-
tainable beauty. Through the long and weary day he repines
at his unhappy lot, and when evening approaches and Phoebus,
as he beautifully expresses it, had " bade farewell to every leaf
and flower," he still lingers at the window, and, laying his head
upon the cold stone, gives vent to a mingled flow of love and
sorrow, until, gradually lulled by the mute melancholy of the

1 Wrought gold. 2 Largesse, bounty, s Estate, dignity. * Cunning, discretion.

A ROYAL POET. 73

twilight hour, he lapses, "half-sleeping, half-swoon," into a
vision, which occupies the remainder of the poem, and in which
is allegorically shadowed out the history of his passion.

When he wakes from his trance, he rises from his stony pil-
low, and pacing his apartment full of dreary reflections, ques-
tions his spirit whither it has been wandering ; whether, indeed,
all that has passed before his dreaming fancy has been conjured
up by preceding circumstances, or whether it is a vision intended
to comfort and assure him in his despondency. If the latter,
he prays that some token may be sent to confirm the promise
of happier days, given him in his slumbers.

Suddenly a turtle-dove of the purest whiteness comes flying
in at the window, and alights upon his hand, bearing in her bill
a branch of red gilliflower, on the leaves of which is written in
letters of gold, the following sentence :

Awake ! awake ! I bring, lover, I bring

The newis glad, that blissful is and sure,
Of thy comfort; now laugh, and play, and sing,

For in the heaven decretit is thy cure.

He receives the branch with mingled hope and dread ; reads
it with rapture, and this he says was the first token of his suc-
ceeding happiness. Whether this is a mere poetic fiction, or
whether the Lady Jane did actually send him a token of her
favor in this romantic way, remains to be determined according
to the faith or fancy of the reader. He concludes his poem by
intimating that the promise conveyed in the vision, and by the
flower, is fulfilled by his being restored to liberty, and made
happy in the possession of the sovereign of his heart.

Such is the poetical account given by James of his love ad-
ventures in Windsor Castle. How much of it is absolute fact,
and how much the embellishment of fancy, it is fruitless to con-
jecture; let us not, however, reject any romantic incident
as incompatible with real life, but let us sometimes take
a poet at his word. I have noticed merely those parts of
the poem immediately connected with the tower, and have
passed over a large part written in the allegorical vein, so
much cultivated at that day. The language of course is
quaint and antiquated, so that the beauty of many of its golden
phrases will scarcely be perceived at the present day ; but it is
impossible not to be charmed with the genuine sentiment, the
delightful artlessness and urbanity, which prevail throughout it.
The descriptions of Nature, too, with which it is embellished.

74 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

are given with a truth, a discrimination, and a freshness, worthy
of the most cultivated periods of the arts.

As an amatory poem, it is edifying, in these days of coarser
thinking, to notice the nature, refinement, and exquisite delicacy
which pervade it, banishing every gross thought, or immodest
expression, and presenting female loveliness clothed in all its
chivalrous attributes of almost supernatural purity and grace.

James nourished nearly about the time of Chaucer and Gower,
and was evidently an admirer and studier of their writings.
Indeed, in one of his stanzas he acknowledges them as his
masters, and in some parts of his poem we find traces of simi-
larity to their productions, more especially to those of Chaucer.
There are always, however, general features of resemblance in
the works of contemporary authors, which are not so much bor-
rowed from each other as from the times. Writers, like bees,
toll their sweets in the wide world ; they incorporate with their
own conceptions the anecdotes and thoughts current in society,
and thus each generation has some features in common,
characteristic of the age in which it lived. James belongs
to one of the most brilliant erns of our literary history,
and establishes the claims of his country to a participation in
its primitive honors. Whilst a small cluster of English writers
are constantly cited as the fathers of our verse, the name of
their great Scottish compeer is apt to be passed over in silence ;
but he is evidently worthy of being enrolled in that little con-
stellation of remote, but never-failing luminaries, who shine in
the highest firmament of literature, and who, like morning stars,
sang together at the bright dawning of British poesy.

Such of my readers as may not Ije familiar with Scottish his-
tory, (though the manner in which it has of late been woven
with captivating fiction has made it a universal study,) may be
curious to learn something of the subsequent history of James,
and the fortunes of his love. His passion for the Lady Jane,
as it was the solace of his captivity, so it facilitated his release,
it being imagined by the Court, that a connection with the
blood-royal of England would attach him to its own interests.
He was ultimately restored to his liberty and crown, having
previously espoused the Lady Jane, who" accompanied him to
Scotland, and made him a most tender and devoted wife.

He found his kingdom in great confusion, the feudal chief-
tains having taken advantage of the troubles and irregularities
of a long interregnum to strengthen themselves in their pos-
sessions, and place themselves above the power of the laws.
James sought to found the basis of his power in the affections

A ROYAL POET. 75

of his people. He attached the lower orders to him by the
reformation of abuses, the temperate and equable administra-
tion of justice, the encouragement of the arts of peace, and the
promotion of every thing that could diffuse comfort, competency,
and innocent enjoyment, through the humblest ranks of society.
He mingled occasionally among the common people in disguise ;
visited their firesides ; entered into their cares, their pursuits,
and their amusements ; informed himself of the mechanical arts,
and how they could best be patronized and improved ; and was
thus an all-pervading spirit, watching with a benevolent eye
over the meanest of his subjects. Having in this generous
manner made himself strong in the hearts of the common people,
he turned himself to curb the power of the factious nobility ;
to strip them of those dangerous immunities which they had
usurped ; to punish such as had been guilty of flagrant offences ;
and to bring the whole into proper obedience to the crown. For
some time they bore this with outward submission, but with
secret impatience and brooding resentment. A conspiracy was
at length formed against his life, at the head of which was his
own uncle, Robert Stewart, Earl of Athol, who, being too old
himself for the perpetration of the deed of blood, instigated his
grandson, Sir Robert Stewart, together with Sir Robert Graham,
and others of less note, to commit the deed. They broke into
his bed-chamber at the Dominican convent near Perth, where
he was residing, and barbarously murdered him by oft-repeated
wounds. His faithful queen, rushing to throw her tender body
between him and the sword, was twice wounded in the ineffec-
tual attempt to shield him from the assassin ; and it was not
until she had been forcibly torn from his person, that the murder
was accomplished.

It was the recollection of this romantic tale of former times,
and of the golden little poem, which had its birth-place in this
tower, that made me visit the old pile with more than common
interest. The suit of armor hanging up in the hall, richly gilt
and embellished, as if to figure in the tournay, brought the
image of the gallant and romantic prince vividly before my
imagination. I paced the deserted chambers where he had
composed his poem ; I leaned upon the window, and endeav-
ored to persuade myself it was the very one where he had
been visited by his vision ; I looked out upon the spot where
he had first seen the Lady Jane. It was the same genial and
joyous month : the birds were again vying with each other in
strains of liquid melody : every thing was bursting into vegeta-
tion, and budding forth the tender promise of the year. Time,

76 'JLHE SKETCH-BOOK.

which delights to obliterate the sterner memorials of human
pride, seems to have passed lightly over this little scene of
poetry and love, and to have withheld his desolating hand.
Several centuries have gone by, yet the garden still flourishes
at the foot of the tower. It occupies what was once the moat
of the keep, and though some parts have been separated by
dividing walls, yet others have still their arbors and shaded
walks, as in the days of James ; and the whole is sheltered,
blooming, and retired. There is a charm about a spot thr.t
has been printed by the footsteps of departed beauty, and con^
secrated by the inspirations of the poet, which is heightened,
rather than impaired, by the lapse of ages. It is, indeed, the
gift of poetiy, to hallow every place in which it moves ; to
breathe round nature an odor more exquisite than the perfume
of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more magical than the
blush of morning.

Others may dwell on the illustrious deeds of James as a war-
rior and a legislator ; but I have delighted to view him merely as
the companion of his fellow-men, the benefactor of the human
heart, stooping from his high estate to sow the sweet flowers of
poetry and song in the paths of common life. He was the first
to cultivate the vigorous and hardy plant of Scottish genius,
which has since been so prolific of the most wholesome and
highly flavored fruit. He carried with him into the sterner re-
gions of the north, all the fertilizing arts of southern refinement.
He did every thing in his power to win his countrymen to the
gay, the elegant, and gentle arts which soften and refine the
character of a people, and wreathe a grace round the loftiness
of a proud and warlike spirit. He wrote many poems, which,
unfortunately for the fulness of his fame, are now lost to the
world ; one, which is still preserved, called " Christ's Kirk of
the Green," shows how diligently he had made himself ac-
quainted with the rustic sports and pastimes, which constitute
such a source of kind and social feeling among the Scottish peas-
antry ; and with what simple and happy humor he could enter
into their enjoyments. He contributed greatly to improve the
national music ; and traces of his tender sentiment and elegant
taste are said to exist in those witching airs, still piped among
the wild mountains and lonely glens of Scotland. He has thus
connected his image with whatever is most gracious and endear-
ing in the national character ; he has embalmed his memory in
song, and floated his name down to after-ages in the rich streams
of Scottish melody. The recollection of these things was kin-
dling at my heart, as I paced the silent scene of his imprison-

THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 77

ment. I have visited Vaticluse with as much enthusiasm as a
pilgrim would visit the shrine at Loretto ; but I have never felt
more poetical devotion than when contemplating the old tower
and the little garden at Windsor, and musing over the romantic
loves of the Lady Jane, and the Royal Poet of Scotland.

THE COUNTRY CHURCH.

A gentleman !

What, o' the woolpack? or the sugar-chest?
Or lists of velvet? which is't, pound, or yard,
You vend your gentry by ?— BEGGAR'S BUSH.

THERE are few places more favorable to the study of char-
acter than an English country church. I was once passing a
few weeks at the seat of a friend, who resided in the vicinity
of one, the appearance of which particularly struck my fancy.
It was one of those rich morsels of quaint antiquity, which give
such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood in the
midst of a county filled with ancient families, and contained,
within its cold and silent aisles, the congregated dust of many
noble generations. The interior walls were encrusted with
monuments of every age and style. The light streamed through
windows dimmed with armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in
stained glass. In various parts of the church were tombs of
knights, and high-born dames, of gorgeous workmanship, with
their effigies in colored marble. On every side, the eye was
struck with some instance of aspiring mortality ; some haughty
memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust,
in this temple of the most humble of all religions.

The congregation was composed of the neighboring people
of rank, who sat in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned,
furnished with richly-gilded prayer-books, and decorated with
their arms upon the pew doors ; of the villagers and peasantry,
who filled the back seats, and a small gallery beside the organ ;
and of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on benches in
the aisles.

The service was performed b}' a snuffling, well-fed vicar, who
had a snug dwelling near the church. He was a privileged
guest at all the tables of the neighborhood, and had been the
keenest fox-hunter in the country, until age and good living
had disabled him from doing any thing more than ride to see
the hounds throw off, and make one at the hunting dinner.

78 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Under the ministry of such a pastor. I found it impossible to
get into the train of* thought suitable to the time and place ; so
having, like many other feeble Christians, compromised with
my conscience, by laying the sin of my own delinquency at
another person's threshold, I occupied myself by making obser-
vations on my neighbors.

I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice the
manners of its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that
there was the least pretension where there was the most ac-
knowledged title to respect. I was particularly struck, for
instance, with the family of a nobleman of high rank, consist-
ing of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be more
simple and unassuming than their appearance. They generally
came to church in the plainest equipage, and often on foot.
'The young ladies would stop and converse in the kindest man-
ner with the peasantry, caress the children, and listen to the
stories of the humble cottagers. Their countenances were open
and beautifully fair, with an expression of high refinement, but
at the same time, a frank cheerfulness, and engaging affability.
Their brothers were tall, and elegantly formed. They were
dressed fashionably, but simply ; with strict neatness and pro-
priety, but without any mannerism or foppishness. Their whole
demeanor was easy and natural, with that lofty grace, and
noble frankness, which bespeak free-born souls that have never
been checked in their growth by feelings of inferiority. There
is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads
contact and communion with others, however humble. It is
only spurious pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks
from every touch. I was pleased to see the manner in which
they would converse with the peasantry about those rural con-
cerns and field sports, in which the gentlemen of this country
so much delight. In these conversations, there was neither
haughtiness on the one part, nor servility on the other ; and you
were only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual
respect of the peasant.

In contrast to these, was the family of a wealthy citizen,
who had amassed a vast fortune, and, having purchased the
estate and mansion of a ruined nobleman in the neighborhood,
was endeavoring to assume all the style and dignity of an heredi-
tary lord of the soil. The family always came to church en
prince. They were rolled majestically along in a carriage embla-
zoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver radiance from
every part of the harness where a crest could possibly be placed.
A fat coachman in a three-cornered hat, richly laced, and a flaxen

THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 79

wig, curling close round his rosy face, was seated on the box,
with a sleek Danish dog beside him. Two footmen in gorgeous
liveries, with huge bouquets, and gold-headed canes, lolled be-
hind. The carriage rose and sunk on« its long springs with a
peculiar stateliness of motion. The very horses champed their
bits, arched their necks, and glanced their eyes more proudly
than common horses ; either because they had caught a little of
the family feeling, or were reined up more tightly than ordi-
nary.

I could not but admire the style with which this splendid
pageant was brought up to the gate of the churchyard. There
was a vast effect produced at the turning of an angle of the
wall ; — a great smacking of the whip ; straining and scram-
bling of horses ; glistening of harness, and flashing of wheels
through gravel. This was the moment of triumph and vain-
glory to the coachman. The horses were urged and checked,
until they were fretted into a foam. They threw out their feet
in a prancing trot, dashing about pebbles at every step. The
crowd of villagers sauntering quietly to church, opened precipi-
tately to the right and left, gaping in vacant admiration. On
reaching the gate, the horses were pulled up with a suddenness
that produced an immediate stop, and almost threw them on
their haunches.

There was an extraordinary hurry of the footmen to alight,
pull down the steps, and prepare every thing for the de-
scent on earth of this august family. The old citizen
first emerged his round red face from out the door, looking
about him with the pompous air of a man accustomed to rule
on 'change, and shake the stock-market with a nod. His con-
sort, a fine, fleshy, comfortable clame, followed him. There
seemed, I must confess, but little pride in her composition. She
was the picture of broad, honest, vulgar enjoyment. The world
went well with her ; and she liked the world. She had fine
clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine children, every thing
was fine about her : it was nothing but driving about, and visit-
ing and feasting. Life was to her a perpetual revel; it was
one long Lord Mayor's day.

Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. They cer-
tainly were handsome ; but had a supercilious air that chilled
admiration, and disposed the spectator to be critical. They
were ultra-fashionable in dress, and, though no one could deny
the richness of their decorations, yet their appropriateness
might be questioned amidst the simplicity of a country church.
They descended loftily from the carriage, and moved up the

80 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

line of peasantry with a step that seemed dainty of the soil it
trod on. They cast an excursive glance around, that passed
coldly over the burly faces of the peasantry, until they met the
eyes of the nobleman's family, when their countenances imme-
diately brightened into smiles, and they made the most profound
and elegant courtesies, which were returned in a manner that
showed they were but slight acquaintances.

I must not forget the two sons of this aspiring citizen, who
came to church in a dashing curricle, with outriders. They were
arrayed in the extremity of the mode, with all that pedantry of
dress which marks the man of questionable pretensions to style.
They kept entirely by themselves, eying every one askance
that came near them, as if measuring his claims to respecta-
bility ; yet they were without conversation, except the exchange
of an occasional cant phrase. They even moved artificially,
for their bodies, in compliance with the caprice of the day, had
been disciplined into the absence of all ease and freedom. Art
had done every thing to accomplish them as men of fashion,
but Nature had denied them the nameless grace. They were
vulgarly shaped, like men formed for the common purposes of
life, and had that air of supercilious assumption which is never
seen in the true gentleman.

I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures of these
two families, because I considered them specimens of what is
often to be met with in this country — the unpretending great,
and the arrogant little. I have no respect for titled rank,
unless it be accompanied with true nobility of soul ; but I have
•remarked, in all countries where artificial distinctions exist,
that the very highest classes are always the most courteous
and unassuming. Those who are well assured of their own
standing, are least apt to trespass on that of others : whereas,
nothing is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity, which
thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its neighbor.

As I have brought these families into contrast, I must notice
their behavior in church. That of the nobleman's family was
quiet, serious, and attentive. Not that they appeared to have
any fervor of devotion, but rather a respect for sacred things,
and sacred places, inseparable from good-breeding. The others,
on the contrary, were in a perpetual flutter and whisper ; they
betrayed a continual consciousness of finery, and a sorry ambition
of being the wonders of a rural congregation.

The old gentleman was the only one really attentive to the
service. He took the whole burden of family devotion upon
himself ; standing bolt upright, and uttering the responses with

THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 81

a l6ud voice that might be heard all over the church. It was
evident that he was one of those thorough church and king
men, who connect the idea of devotion and loyalty ; who con-
sider the Deity, somehow or other, of the government party,
and religion " a very excellent sort of thing, that ought to be
countenanced and kept up."

When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed more by
way of example to the lower orders, to show them, that though
so great and wealthy, he was not above being religious ; as I
have seen a turtle-fed alderman swallow publicly a basin of
charity soup, smacking his lips at every mouthful, and pro-
nouncing it ;t excellent food for the poor."

When the service was at an end, I was curious to witness the
several exits of my groups. The young noblemen and their
sisters, as the day was fine, preferred strolling home across the
fields, chatting with the country people as they went. The
others departed as they came, in grand parade. Again were
the equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was regain the
smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the glittering
of harness. The horses started off almost at a bound ; the
villagers again hurried to right and left ; the wheels threw up a
cloud of dust, and the aspiring family was rapt out of sight in
a whirlwind.

THE WIDOW AND HER SON.

Pittie olde age, within whose silver haires
Honour and reverence evermore have rain'd.

MARLOWE'S TAMBURLAINE.

THOSE who are in the habit of remarking such matters must have
noticed the passive quiet of an English landscape on Sunday. The
clacking of the mill, the regularly recurring stroke of the flail, the
din of the blacksmith's hammer, the whistling of the ploughman,
the rattling of the cart, and all other sounds of rural labor are sus-
pended. The very farmdogs bark less frequently, being less dis-
turbed by passing travellers. At such times I have almost fancied
the winds sunk into quiet, and that the sunny landscape, with its
fresh green tints melting into blue haze, enjoyed the hallowed calm.

Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky.

Well was it ordained that the day of devotion should be a day of rest.
The holy repose which reigns over the face of Nature has its moral
influence ; every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel the
natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. For my
part, there are feelings that visit me in a country church, amid the
beautiful serenity of Nature, which I experience nowhere else ; and

8 2 THE SKE TCH-B 0 OK.

if not a more religious, I think I am a better, man on Sunday than
on any other day of the seven.

During my recent residence in the country I used frequently to
attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering
monuments, its dark oaken panelling, all reverend with the gloom of
departed years, seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn meditation ;
but, being in a wealthy, aristocratic neighborhood, the glitter of
fashion penetrated even into the sanctuary, and I felt myself continu-
ally thrown back upon the world by the frigidity and pomp of the
poor worms around me. The only being in the whole congregation
who appeared thoroughly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of
a true Christian was a poor decrepit old woman bending under the
weight of years and infirmities. She bore the traces of something
better than abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were
visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the extreme,
was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded
her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat
alone on the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all
love, all friendship, all society, and to have nothing left her but the
hopes of heaven. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her
aged form in prayer, habitually conning her prayer-book, which her
palsied hand and failing eyes would not permit her to read, but
which she evidently knew by heart, I felt persuaded that the falter-
ing voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far before the responses
of the clerk, the swell of the organ, or the chanting of the choir.

I am fond of loitering about country churches ; and this was
so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It
stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful
bend, and then wound its way through a long reach of soft
meadow scenery. The church was surrounded by yew trees,
which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire
shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows gener-
ally wheeling about it. I was seated there one still sunny
morning, watching two laborers who were digging a grave.
They had chosen one of the most remote and neglected corners
of the churchyard, where, from the number of nameless graves
around, it would appear that the indigent and friendless were
huddled into the earth. I was .told that the new-made grave
was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was meditating
on the distinctions of worldly rank, which extend thus down
into the very dust, the toll of the bell announced the approach
of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which
pride had nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest materials,
without pall or other covering, was borne by some of the vil-
lagers. The sexton walked before with an air of cold indiffer-
ence. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected
woe, but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after

THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 83

the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased — the poor
old woman whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar.
She was supported by an humble friend, who was endeavoring
to comfort her. A few of the neighboring poor had joined the
train, and some children of the village were running hand in
hand, now shouting with unthinking mirth, and now pausing to
gaze, with childish curiosity, on the grief of the mourner.

As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson issued
^from the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer-
; book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, how-
ever, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been desti-
! tute, and the survivor was penniless. It was shuffled through,
therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well-fed
priest moved but a few steps from the church door ; his voice
could scarcely be heard at the grave ; and never did I hear the
funeral service, that sublime and touching ceremony, turned
into such a frigid mummer^v of words.

I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the
ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the
deceased — "George Somers, aged 26 years." The poor
mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her
withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer ; but I could per-
ceive, by a feeble rocking of the body, and a convulsive motion
of the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son
with the yearnings of a mother's heart.

Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth.
There was that bustling stir, which breaks so harshly on the
feelings of grief and affection : directions given in the cold
tones of business ; the striking of spades into sand and gravel ;
which, at the grave of those we love, is of all sounds the most
withering. The bustle around seemed to waken the mother from
a wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked
about with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords
to lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands, and
broke into an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended
her, took her by the arm, endeavoring to raise her from the earth,
and to whisper something like consolation — " Nay, now — nay,
now — don't take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake
her head, and wring her hands, as one not to be comforted.

As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the
cords seemed to agonize her ; but when, on some accidental
obstruction, there was a jostling of the coffin, all the tenderness
of the mother burst forth ; as if any harm could come to him
who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering.

84 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

I could see no more — my heart swelled into my throat — my
eyes filled with tears — I felt as if I were acting a barbarous
part in standing b}' and gazing idly on this scene of maternal
anguish. I wandered to another part of the churchyard, where
I remained until the funeral train had dispersed.

When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quitting the
grave, leaving behind her the remains of all that was dear to
her on earth, and returning to silence and destitution, my heart
ached for her. What, thought I, are the distresses of the rich?
They have friends to soothe — pleasures to beguile — a world
to divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the sorrows of
the young? Their growing minds soon close above the wound

— their elastic spirits soon rise beneath the pressure — their
green and ductile affections soon twine around new objects.
But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward appliances
to soothe — the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is
but a wintry day, and who can look for no aftergrowth of joy

— the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, destitute, mourning
over an only son the last solace of her years ; — these are :
indeed sorrows which make us feel the impotency of consolation.

It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way
homeward, I met with the woman who had acted as comforter:
she was just returning from accompanying the mother to her
lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars con-
nected with the affecting scene I had witnessed.

The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from
childhood. They had inhabited one of the neatest cottages,
and by various rural occupations, and the assistance of a small
garden, had supported themselves creditably and comfortably,
and led a happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who
had grown up to be the staff and pride of their age. — "Oh,
sir!" said the good woman, "he was such a comely lad, so
sweet-tempered, so kind to every one around him, so dutiful to
his parents ! It did one's heart good to see him of a Sunday,
drest out in his best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, supporting
his old mother to church — for she was always fonder of leaning
on George's arm than on her good man's ; and, poor soul, she
might well be proud of him, for a finer lad there was not in the
country round."

Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of scarcity
and agricultural hardship, to enter into the service of one of.
the small craft that plied on a neighboring river. He had not
been long in this employ, when he was entrapped by a press-
gang, and carried off to sea. His parents received tidings of

THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 85

his seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. It was
the loss of their main prop. The father, who was already
infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and sunk into his grave.
The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no
longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there
was a kind of feeling toward her throughout the village, and a
certain respect as being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no
one applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many
happy days, she was permitted to remain in it, where she lived
solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were
chiefly supplied from the scanty productions of her little gar-
den, which the neighbors would now and then cultivate for her.
It was but a few days before the time at which these circum-
stances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables
for her repast, when she heard the cottage-door which faced the
garden suddenly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed to
be looking eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in sea-
men's clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the
air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her, and
hastened toward her, but his steps were faint and faltering ; he
sank on his knees before her, and sobbed like a child. The
poor woman gazed upon him with a vacant and wandering eye
— "• Oh my dear, dear mother ! don't you know your son? your
poor boy George?" It was, indeed, the wreck of her once
noble lad ; who, shattered by wounds, by sickness, and foreign
imprisonment, had, at length, dragged his wasted limbs home-
ward, to repose among the scenes of his childhood.

I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting,
where joy and sorrow were so completely blended : still he was
alive ! — he was come home ! — he might yet live to comfort
and cherish her old age ! Nature, however, was exhausted in
him ; and if anything had been wanting to finish the work of
fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been suf-
ficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his wid
owed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never
rose from it again.

The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had re-
turned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assist-
ance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak,
however, to talk — he could only look his thanks. His mother
was his constant attendant ; and he seemed unwilling to be
helped by any other hand.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of
manhood ; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feel-

86 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

ings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced
life, in sickness and despondency ; who that has pined on a
weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land ; but
has thought on the mother " that looked on his childhood," that
smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness ? Oh !
there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a
son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is
neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor
weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She
will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she will surrren-
der every pleasure to his enjoyment ; she will glory in his fame,
and exult in his prosperity ; — and, if misfortune overtake him,
he will be the dearer to her from misfortune ; and if disgrace
settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite
of his disgrace ; and if all the world beside cast him off, she
will be all the world to him.

Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sick-
ness, and none to soothe — lonely and in prison, and none to
visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight ; if
she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for
hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he
would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up until
he saw her bending over him, when he would take her hand, lay
it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child.
In this way he died.

My first impulse, on hearing this humble tale of affliction, was
to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer pecuniary
assistance, and, if possible, comfort. I found, however, on
inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted
them to do every thing that the case admitted ; and as the poor
know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not ven-
ture to intrude.

The next Sunday I was at the village church ; when, to my
surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle to
her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar.

She. had made an effort to put on something like mourning
for her son; and nothing could be more touching than this
struggle between pious affection and utter poverty: a black
ribbon or so — a faded black handkerchief — and one or two
more such humble attempts to express by outward signs that
grief which passes show. — When I looked round upon the
storied monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble
pomp, with which grandeur mourned magnificently over de-
parted pride, and turned to this poor widow, bowed down Dy

THE HOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. 87

age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and offering up the
prayers and praises of a pious, though a broken heart, I felt
that this living monument of real grief was worth them all.

I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the
congregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted them-
selves to render her situation more comfortable, and to lighten
her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to
the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was
missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the
neighborhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, that she
had quietly breathed her last, and had gone to rejoin those she
loved, in that world where sorrow is never known, and friends
are never parted.

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP.

A SHAKSPEARIAN RESEARCH.

" A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good fellows. I have heard
ray great-grandfather tell, how his great-great-grandfather should say, that it was an old
proverb when his great-grandfather was a child, that ' it was a good wind that blew a
man to the wine.' " — MOTHER BOMBIE.

IT is a pious custom, in some Catholic countries, to honor the
memory of saints by votive lights burnt before their pictures.
The popularity of a saint, therefore, may be known by the
number of these offerings. One, perhaps, is left to moulder in
the darkness of his little chapel ; another may have a solitary
lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his effigy ; while the
whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the shrine of some beati-
fied father of renown. The wealthy devotee brings his huge
luminary of wax ; the eager zealot, his seven-branched candle-
stick ; and even the mendicant pilgrim is by no means satisfied
that sufficient light is thrown upon the deceased, unless he hangs
up his little lamp of smoking oil. The consequence is, that in the
eagerness to enlighten, they are often apt to obscure ; and I
have occasionally seen an unlucky saint almost smoked out of
countenance by the officiousness of his followers.

In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakspeare.
Ever}* writer considers it his bounden duty, to light up some
portion of his character or works, and to rescue some merit
from oblivion. The commentator, opulent in words, produces
vast tomes of dissertations ; the common herd of editors send

88 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

up mists of obscurity from their notes at the bottom of each
page ; and every casual scribbler brings his farthing rush-light
of eulogy or research, to swell the cloud of incense and of
smoke.

As I honor all established usages of my brethren of the quill,
I thought it but proper to contribute my mite of homage to the
memory of the illustrious bard. I was for some time, however,
sorely puzzled in what way I should discharge this duty. I
found myself anticipated in every attempt at a new reading ;
every doubtful line had been explained a dozen different ways,
and perplexed beyond the reach of elucidation ; and as to fine
passages they had all been amply praised by previous admirers :
nay, so completely had the bard, of late, been overlarded with
panegyric by a great German critic, that it was difficult now to
find even a fault that had not been argued- into a beauty.

In this perplexity, I was one morning turning over his pages,
when I casually opened upon the comic scenes of Henry IV.,
and was, in a moment, completely lost in the madcap revelry
of the Boar's Head Tavern. So vividly and naturally are these
scenes of humor depicted, and with such force and consistency
are the characters sustained, that they become mingled up in
the mind with the facts and personages of real life. To few
readers does it occur, that these are all ideal creations of a
poet's brain, and that, in sober truth, no such knot of merry
roysters ever enlivened the dull neighborhood of Eastcheap.

For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusions of
poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed, is just as valuable
to me as a hero of history that existed a thousand years since ;
and, if I may be excused such an insensibility to the common
ties of human nature, I would not give up fat Jack for half the
great men of ancient chronicle. What have the heroes of yore
done for me, or men like me? They have conquered countries
of which I do not enjoy an acre ; or they have gained laurels of
which I do not inherit a leaf ; or they have furnished examples
of hare-brained prowess, which I have neither the opportunity
nor the inclination to follow. But old Jack Falstaff ! — kind
Jack Falstaff ! — sweet Jack Falstaff ! has enlarged the bound-
aries of human enjoyment ; he has added vast regions of wit
and good-humor, in which the poorest man may revel ; and has
bequeathed a never-failing inheritance of jolly laughter, to make
mankind merrier and better to the latest posterity.

A thought suddenly struck me : "I will make a pilgrimage
to Eastcheap," said I, closing the book, " and see if the old
Boar's Head Tavern still exists. Who knows but I may light

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. 89

upon some legendary traces of Dame Quickly and her guests ;
at any rate, there will be a kindred pleasure, in treading the
halls once vocal with their mirth, to that the toper enjoys in
smelling to the empty cask, once filled with generous wine."

The resolution was no sooner formed than put in execution.
I forbear to treat of the various adventures and wonders I en-
countered in my travels, of the haunted regions of Cock-lane ;
of the faded glories of Little Britain, and the parts adjacent ;
what perils I ran in Cateaton-street and Old Jewry ; of the
renowned Guildhall and its two stunted giants, the pride and
wonder of the city, and the terror of all unlucky urchins ; and
how I visited London Stone, and struck my staff upon it, in
imitation of that arch-rebel, Jack Cade.

Let it suffice to say, that I at length arrived in merry East-
cheap, that ancient region of wit and wassail, where the very
names of the streets relished of good cheer, as Pudding-lane
bears testimony even at the present day. For Eastcheap, says
old Sto we, " was always famous for its convivial doings. The
cookes cried hot ribbes of beef roasted, pies well baked, and
other victuals ; there was clattering of pewter pots, harpe, pipe,
and sawtrie." Alas ! how sadly is the scene changed since the
roaring days of Falstaff and old Stowe ! The madcap royster
has given place to the plodding tradesman ; the clattering of
pots and the sound of " harpe and sawtrie," to the din of carts
and the accursed dinging of the dustman's bell ; and no song is
heard, save, haply, the strain of some siren from Billingsgate,
chanting the eulogy of deceased mackerel.

I sought, in vain, for the ancient abode of Dame Quickly.
The only relic of it is a boar's head, carved in relief in stone,
which formerly served as the sign, but, at present, is built into
the parting line of two houses which stand on the site of the
renowned old tavern.

For the history of this little abode of good fellowship, I was
referred to a tallow-chandler's widow, opposite, who had been
born and brought up on the spot, and was looked up to, as the
indisputable chronicler of the neighborhood. I found her seated
in a little back parlor, the window of which looked out upon a
yard about eight feet square, laid out as a flower-garden ; while
a glass door opposite afforded a distant peep of the street,
through a vista of soap and tallow candles ; the two views,
which comprised, in all probability, her prospects in life, and
the little world in which she had lived, and moved, and had her
being, for the better part of a century.

To be versed in the history of Eastcheap, great and little,

90 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

from London Stone even unto the Monument, was, doubtless,
in her opinion, to be acquainted wiMi the history of the uni-
verse. Yet, with all this, she possessed the simplicity of true
wisdom, and that liberal, communicative disposition, which I
have generally remarked in intelligent old ladies, knowing in
the concerns of their neighborhood.

Her information, however, did not extend far back into
antiquity. She could throw no light upon the history of the
Boar's Head, from the time that Dame Quickly espoused the
valiant Pistol, until the great fire of London, when it was un-
fortunately burnt down. It was soon rebuilt, and continued to
flourish under the old name and sign, until a dying landlord,
struck with remorse for double scores, bad measures, and other
iniquities which are incident to the sinful race of publicans,
endeavored to make his peace with Heaven, by bequeathing the
tavern to St. Michael's church, Crooked-lane, toward the sup-
porting of a chaplain. For some time the vestry meetings were
regularly held there ; but it was observed that the old Boar
never held up his head under church government. He gradu-
ally declined, and finally gave his last gasp about thirty years
since. The tavern was then turned into shops ; but she in-
formed me that a picture of it was still preserved in St. Michael's
church, which stood just in the rear. To get a sight of this
picture was now nry determination ; so, having informed myself
of the abode of the sexton, I took my leave of the venerable
chronicler of Eastcheap, my visit having doubtless raised greatly
her opinion of her legendary lore, and furnished an important
incident in the history of her life.

It cost me some difficulty and much curious inquiry, to
ferret out the humble hanger-on to the church. I had to
explore Crooked-lane, and divers little alleys, and elbows, and
dark passages, with which this old city is perforated, like an
ancient cheese, or a worm-eaten chest of drawers. At length
I traced him to a corner of a small court, surrounded by lofty
houses, where the inhabitants enjoy about as much of the face
of heaven as a community of frogs at the bottom of a well.
The sexton was a meek, acquiescing little man, of a bowing,
lowly habit ; yet he had a pleasant twinkling in his eye, and if
encouraged, would now and then hazard a small pleasantry ;
such as a man of his low estate might venture to make in the
company of high church wardens, and other mighty men of
the earth. I found him in company with the deputy organist,
seated apart, like Milton's angels ; discoursing, no doubt, on
high doctrinal points, and settling the affairs of the church

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP.' 91

over a friendly pot of ale ; for the lower classes of English
seldom deliberate on an}' weighty matter without the assist-
ance of a cool tankard to clear their understandings. I arrived
at the moment when they had finished their ale and their argu-
ment, and were about to repair to the church to put il^in order ;
so, having made known my wishes, I received their gracious
permission to accompany them.

The church of St. Michael's, Crooked-lane, standing a short
distance from Billingsgate, is enriched with the tombs of many
fishmongers of renown ; and as every profession has its galaxy
of glory, and its constellation of great men, I presume the
monument of a mighty fishmonger of the olden time is re-
garded with as much reverence by succeeding generations of
the craft, as poets feel on contemplating the tomb of Virgil,
or soldiers the monument of a Marlborough or Turenne.

I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious
men, to observe that St. Michael's, Crooked-lane, contains
also the ashes of that doughty champion, William Walworth,
Knight, who so manfully clove down the sturdy wight, Wat
Tyler, in Smithfield ; a hero worthy of honorable blazon, as
almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of
arms ; the sovereigns of Cockney being generally renowned as
the most pacific of all potentates.1

Adjoining the church, in a small cemetery, immediately
under the back window of what was once the Boar's Head,
stands the tombstone of Robert Preston, whilom drawer 'at the
tavern. It is now nearly a century since this trusty drawer
of good liquor closed his bustling career, and was thus quietly
deposited within call of his customers. As I was clearing away

1 The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of this worthy,
n'hich, unhappily, was destroyed in the great conflagration.

Hereunder lyth a man of fame,
William Walworth callyvd by name;
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here,
And twise Lord Maior, as in books appeare;
Who, with courage stout and manly myght,
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's sight,
For which act done, and trew entent,
The Kyng made him Knyght incontinent;
And gave him armes, as here you see,
To declare his fact and chivaldrie :
He left this lyff the yere of our God
Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.

An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the venerable Stowe :
" Whereas," saith he, " it hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the
rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord
Maior, was named Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this
rash conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. The
principal leaders, or captains of the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first matt;
the second was John, or Jack, Straw, etc., etc." — STOWK'S London.

92 • THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the weeds from his epitaph, the little sexton drew me on one
side with a mysterious air, and informed me, in a low voice,
that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind
was unruly, howling and whistling, banging about doors and
windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were
frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep
quietly in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston, which hap-
pened to be airing itself in the churchyard, was attracted by
the well-known call of u waiter," from the Boar's Head, and
made its sudden appearance in the midst of a roaring club,
just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the " mirre
garland of Captain Death ; " to the discomfiture of sundry train-
band captains, and the conversion of an infidel attorney, who
became a zealous Christian on the spot, and was never known
to twist the truth afterwards, except in the way of business.

I beg it may be remembered, that I do not pledge myself for
the authenticity of this anecdote ; though it is well known that
the churchyards and by-corners of this old metropolis are very
much infested with perturbed spirits ; and every one must have
heard of the Cock-lane ghost, and the apparition that guards
the regalia in the Tower, which has frightened so many bold
sentinels almost out of their wits.

Be all this as it may, this Robert Preston seems to have
been a worthy successor to the nimble-tongued Francis, who
attended upon the revels of Prince Hal ; to have been equally
prompt with his "anon, anon, sir," and to have transcended
his predecessor in honesty ; for Falstaff, the veracit}' of whose
taste no man will venture to impeach, flatly accuses Francis
of putting lime in his sack ; whereas, honest Preston's epitaph
lauds him for the sobriety of his conduct, the soundness of his
wine, and the fairness of his measure.1 The worthy dignitaries
of the church, however, did not appear much captivated by
the sober virtues of the tapster : the deputy organist, who had
a moist look out of the eye, made some shrewd remark on the

1 As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe it for the admo-
nition of delinquent tapsters. It is, no doubt, the production of some choice spirit
who once frequented the Boar's Head.

Bacchus, to give the toping -world surprise,
Produced one sober son, and here he lies.
Though rear'd among full hogsheads, he defied
The charms of wine, and every one beside.
O reader, if to justice thou 'rt inclined,
Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind.
He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots,
Had sundry virtues that excused his faults.
You that on Bacchus have the like dependence,
Pray copy Bob, in measure and attendance.

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. 93

abstemiousness of a man brought up among full hogsheads ;
and the little sexton corroborated his opinion by a significant
wink, and a dubious shake of the head.

Thus far my researches, though they threw much light on
the history of tapsters, fishmongers, and Lord Mayors, yet dis-
appointed me in the great object of my quest, the picture of the
Boar's Head Tavern. No such painting was to be found in the
church of St. Michael's. "Marry and amen! " said I, "here
endeth my research!" So I was giving the matter up, with
the air of a baffled antiquary, when my friend the sexton, per-
ceiving me to be curious in eVery thing relative to the old tav-
ern, offered to show me the choice vessels of the vestry, which
had been handed down from remote times, when the parish
meetings were held at the Boar's Head. These were deposited
in the parish club-room, which had been transferred, on the
decline of the ancient establishment, to a tavern in the neigh-
borhood.

A few steps brought us to the house, which stands No. 12,
Miles-lane, bearing the title of The Mason's Arms, and is kept by
Master Edward Honey ball, the "bully-rook" of the establish-
ment. It is one of those little taverns, which abound in the
heart of the city, and form the centre of gossip and intelligence
of the neighborhood. We entered the bar-room, which was
narrow and darkling ; for in these close lanes but few rays of
reflected light are enabled to struggle down to the inhabitants,
whose broad day is at best but a tolerable twilight. The room
was partitioned into boxes, each containing a table spread with
a clean white cloth, ready for dinner. This showed that the
guests were of the good old stamp, and divided their day
equally, for it was but just one o'clock. At the lower end of
the room was a clear coal fire, before which a breast of lamb
was roasting. A row of bright brass candlesticks and pewter
mugs glistened along the mantelpiece, and an old-fashioned clock
ticked in one corner. There was something primitive in this
medley of kitchen, parlor, and hall, that carried me back to
earlier times, and pleased me. The place, indeed, was humble,
but every thing had that look of order and neatness which be-
speaks the superintendence of a notable English housewife. A
group of amphibious-looking beings, who might be either fish-
ermen or sailors, were regaling themselves in one of the boxes.
As I was a visitor of rather higher pretensions, I was ushered
into a little misshapen back room, having at least nine corners.
It was lighted by a skylight, furnished with antiquated leathern
chairs, and ornamented with the portrait of a fat pig. It was

94 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

evidently appropriated to particular customers, and I found a
shabby gentleman, in a red nose, and oil-cloth hat, seated in
one corner, meditating on a half -empty pot of porter.

The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and with an air
of profound importance imparted to her my errand. Dame
Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, and no
bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses, Dame Quickly.
She seemed delighted with an opportunity to oblige ; and hurry-
ing up stairs to the archives of her house, where the precious
vessels of the parish club were deposited, she returned, smiling
and courtesy ing with them in her bands.

The first she presented me was a japanned iron tobacco-box,
of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry had smoked
at their stated meetings, since time immemorial ; and which
was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or used on
common occasions. I received it with becoming reverence ;
but what was my delight, at beholding on its cover the identical
painting of which I was in quest ! There was displayed the
outside of the Boar's Head Tavern, and before the door was to
be seen the whole convivial -group, at table, in full revel, pic-
tured with that wonderful fidelity and force, with which the
portraits of renowned generals and commodores are illustrated
on tobacco boxes, for the benefit of posterity. Lest, however,
there should be any mistake, the cunning limner had warily
inscribed the names of Prince Hal and Falstaff on the bottoms
of their chairs.

On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly obliter-
ated, recording that this box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore,
for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar's Head Tavern,
and that it was "• repaired and beautified by his successor, Mr.
John Packard, 1767." Such is a faithful description of this
august and venerable relic, and I question whether the learned
Scriblerius contemplated his Roman shield, or the Knights of
the Round Table the long-sought sangreal with more exultation.

While I was meditating on it with enraptured gaze, Dame
Honeyball, who was highly gratified by the interest it excited,
put in my hands a drinking cup or goblet, which also belonged
to the vestry, and was descended from the old Boar's Head. It
bore the inscription of having been the gift of Francis Wythers,
Knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding great value,
being considered very "antyke." This last opinion was
strengthened by the shabby gentleman with the red nose, and
oil-cloth hat, and whom I strongly suspected of being a lineal
descendant from the valiant Bardolph. He suddenly roused

THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. 95

from his meditation on the pot of porter, and casting a knowing
look at the goblet, exclaimed, "Ay, ay, the head don't ache
now that made that there article."

The great importance attached to this memento of ancient
revelry by modern churchwardens, at first puzzled me ; but
there is nothing sharpens the apprehensions so much as anti-
quarian research ; for I immediate!}' perceived that this could
be no other than the identical ' ' parcel-gilt goblet ' ' on which
Falstaff made his loving, but faithless vow to Dame Quickly ;
and which would, of course, be treasured up with care among
the regalia of her domains, as a testimony of that solemn con-
tract.1

Mine hostess, indeed, gave me a long history how the goblet
had been handed down from generation to generation. She also
entertained me with many particulars concerning the worthy
vestrymen who have seated themselves thus quietly on the
stools of the ancient roysters of Eastcheap, and, like so many
commentators, utter clouds of smoke in honor of Shakspeare.
These I forbear to relate, lest my readers should not be as
curious in these matters as myself. Suffice it to say, the neigh-
bors, one and all, about Eastcheap, believe that Falstaff and
his merry crew actually lived and revelled there. Nay, there
are several legendary anecdotes concerning him still extant
among the oldest frequenters of the Mason's Arms, which they
give as transmitted down from their forefathers ; and Mr.
M'Kash, an Irish hair-dresser, whose shop stands on the site
of the old Boar's Head, has several dry jokes of Fat Jack's not
laid down in the books, with which he makes his customers
ready to die of laughter.

I now turned to my friend the sexton to make some further
inquiries, but I found him sunk in pensive meditation. His
head had declined a little on one side ; a deep sigh heaved from
the very bottom of his stomach, and, though I could not see a
tear trembling in his eye, yet a moisture was evidently steal-
ing from a corner of his mouth. I followed the direction of
his eye through the door which stood open, and found it fixed
wistfully on the savory breast of lamb, roasting in dripping
richness before the fire.

I now called to mind, that in the eagerness of my recondite
investigation, I was keeping the poor man from his dinner.

1 Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at
the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the Prince
broke thy head for likening his father to a singing-man at Windsor; thou didst ewear to
me then, as 1 was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my Jady thy wife.
Canst thou deny it? — Henry IV. part 2.

96 THE SKETCH-BOOR.

My bowels yearned with sympathy, and putting in his hand
a small token of my gratitude and good-will, I departed with a
hearty benediction on him, Dame Honeyball, and the parish
club of Crooked-lane — not forgetting my shabby, but senten-
tious friend, in the oil-cloth hat and copper nose.

Thus have I given a " tedious brief " account of this interest-
ing research ; for which, if it prove too short and unsatisfactory,
I can only plead my inexperience in this branch of literature,
so deservedly popular at the present day. I am aware that a
more skilful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled
the materials I have touched upon, to a good merchantable bulk,
comprising the biographies of William Walworth, Jack Straw,
and Robert Preston*; some notice of the eminent fishmongers
of St. Michael's ; the history of Eastcheap, great and little ;
private anecdotes of Dame Honeyball and her pretty daughter,
whom I have not even mentioned : to say nothing of a damsel
tending the breast of lamb, (and whom, by the way, I remarked
to be a comely lass, with a neat foot and ankle;) the whole
enlivened by the riots of Wat Tyler, and illuminated by the
great fire of London.

All this I leave as a rich mine, to be worked by future com-
mentators ; nor do I despair of seeing the tobacco-box, and
the "parcel-gilt goblet," which I have thus brought to light,
the subjects of future engravings, and almost as fruitful of
voluminous dissertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles,
or the far-famed Portland vase.

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE.

A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In time's great period shall return to nought.

I know that all the muses' heavenly lays,
"With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,

That there is nothing lighter than mere praise.

DRUMMOND OP HAWTHORNDEIT.

THERE are certain half dreaming moods of mind, in which
we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some
quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries, and build our

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 97

air castles undisturbed. In such a mood, I was loitering about
the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that
luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with
the name of reflection ; when suddenly an irruption of mad-
cap boys from Westminster school, playing at foot-ball, broke
in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted
passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I
sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still
deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of
the vergers for admission to the library. He conducted me
through a portal, rich with the crumbling sculpture of former
ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage leading to the
Chapter-house, and the chamber in which Doomsday Book
is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door on the
left. To this the verger applied a key ; it was double locked,
and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now
ascended a dark narrow staircase, and passing through a sec-
ond door, entered the library.

I found nryself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported
by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted lay
a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the
floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the clois-
ters. An ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the
church in his robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall
and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved
oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical
writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the
centre of the library was a solitary table, with two or three
books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched
by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and
profound meditation. It was buried deep among the massive
walls of the abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world.
I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys
faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell toll-
ing for prayers, echoing soberly along the roofs of the abbey.
By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter,
and at length died away. The bell ceased to toll, and a pro-
found silence reigned through the dusky hall.

I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in
parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in
a venerable elbow chair. Instead of reading, however, I was
beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the
place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old
volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves.

98 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but
consider the library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors,
like mummies, are piously entombed, and left to blacken and
moulder in dusty oblivion.

How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust
aside with such indifference, cost some aching head — how
many weary days ! how many sleepless nights ! How have
their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and
cloisters ; shut themselves up from the face of man, and the
still more blessed face of nature ; and devoted themselves to
painful research and intense reflection ! And all for what? to
occupy an inch of dusty shelf — to have the title of their
works read now and then in a future age, by some drowsy
churchman, or casual straggler like myself ; and in Another age
to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this
boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound ;
like the tone of that bell which has just tolled among these
towers, filling the ear for a moment — lingering transiently in
echo — and then passing away, like a thing that was not !

While I sat half -murmuring, half- meditating these unprofita-
ble speculations, with my head resting on my hand, I was
thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I acci-
dentally loosened the clasps ; when, to my utter astonishment,
the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from
a deep sleep ; then a husky hem, and at length began to talk.
At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much trou-
bled by a cobweb which some studious spider had woven across
it ; and having probably contracted a cold from long exposure
to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, how-
ever, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an exceed-
ingly fluent conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure,
was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation what in
the present day would be deemed barbarous ; but I shall en-
deavor, as far as I am able, to render it in modern parlance.

It began with railings about the neglect of the world — about
merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such
commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained bitterly
that it had not been opened for more than two centuries ; — that
the Dean only looked now and then into the library, sometimes
took down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few moments,
and then returned them to their shelves.

" What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, which
I began to perceive was somewhat choleric, tk what a plague do
they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 99

here, and watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties
in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the Dean ?
Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed ; and I
would have a rule passed that the Dean should pay each of us
a visit at least once a year ; or if he is not equal to the task,
let them once in a while turn loose the whole school of West-
minster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have
an airing.

" Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, "you are not aware
how much better you are off than most books of your genera-
tion. By being stored away in this ancient library, you are like
the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which lie
enshrined in the adjoining chapels ; while the remains of your
contemporary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature,
have long since returned to dust."

" Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking
big, "I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms
of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand to hand,
like other great contemporary works ; but here have I been
clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have silently
fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the very ven-
geance with my intestines, if you had not by chance given me
an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to
pieces."

" My good friend," rejoined I, "had you been left to the
circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have
been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now
well stricken in years ; very few of your contemporaries can be
at present in existence ; and those few owe their longevity to
being immured like yourself in old libraries ; which, suffer me
to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly
and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries attached to
religious establishments, for the benefit of the old and decrepit,
and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often
endure to an amazingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of
your contemporaries as if in circulation — where do we meet
with their works? — what do we hear of Robert Groteste of
Lincoln ? No one could have toiled harder than he for immor-
tality. He is said to have written nearl}- two hundred volumes.
He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to perpetuate his
name : but, alas ! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a
few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are
scarcely disturbed even l>y the antiquarian. What do we hear
of Giraidus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher.

100 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

theologian, and poet? He declined two bishoprics, that he
might shut himself up and write for posterity ; but posterity
never inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Hunting-
don, who, besides a learned history of England, wrote a treatise
on the contempt of the world, which the world has revenged by
forgetting him ? What is quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled
the miracle of his age in classical composition ? Of his three
great heroic poems, one is lost forever, excepting a mere frag-
ment ; the others are known only to a few of the curious in
literature ; and as to his love verses and epigrams, they have
entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis,
the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree of life? —
of William of Malmsbury ; of Simeon of Durham ; of Benedict
of Peterborough; of John Hauvill of St. Albans ; of "

"Prithee, friend," cried the quarto in a testy tone, "how
old do you think me ? You are talking of authors that lived
long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so
that they in a manner expatriated themselves, and deserved to
be forgotten ; 1 but I, sir, was ushered into the world from the
press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I was written in
my own native tongue, at a time when the language had become
fixed ; and, indeed, I was considered a model of pure and elegant
English."

[I should observe that these remarks were couched in such
intolerably antiquated terms, that I have had infinite difficulty
in rendering them into modern phraseology.]

" I cry your mercy," said I, " for mistaking your age ; but it
matters little ; almost all the writers of your time have likewise
passed into forgetfulness ; and De Worde 's publications are
mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and
stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to
perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of authors of
every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert of
Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon.2
Even now, many talk of Spenser's ' well of pure English unde-
filed,' as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain-

1 In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to eudite, and
have many noble things fulfilde, but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in
French, of which speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in hearing
of Frenchmen's Englishe. — CHAUCER'S Testament of Love.

2 Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, "afterwards, also, by diligent travell of
Geffry Chaucer and John Gowre, in the time of Richard the Second, and after them of
John Scogan and John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an
excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the
time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, ami sundrie
learned and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the same, to their
great praise and immortal commendation."

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 101

head, and was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues,
perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this
which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and
the reputation built upon it so fleeting. Unless thought can
be committed to something more permanent and unchangeable
than such a medium, even thought must share the fate of every
thing else, and fall into decay. This should serve as a check
upon the vanity and exultation of the most popular writer. He
finds the language in which he has embarked his fame gradually
altering, and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice
of fashion. He looks back, and beholds the early authors of
his country, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by
modern writers : a few short ages have covered them with ob-
scurity, and their merits can only be relished by the quaint
taste of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be the
fate of his own work, which, however it may be admired in its
day, and held up as a model of purity, will, in the course of
years, grow antiquated and obsolete, until it shall become al-
most as unintelligible in its native land as an Egyptian obelisk,
or one of those Runic inscriptions, said to exist in the deserts
of Tartary. I declare," added I, with some emotion, "when
I contemplate a modern library, filled with new works in all the
bravery of rich gilding and binding, I feel disposed to sit down
and weep ; like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army,
pranked out in all the splendor of military array, and reflected
that in one hundred years not one of them would be in exist-
ence !"

"Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, " I see how
it is ; these modern scribblers have superseded all the good old
authors. I suppose nothing is read now-a-days but Sir Philip
Sidney's Arcadia, Sackville's stately plays and Mirror for
Magistrates, or the fine-spun euphuisms of the ' unparalleled
John Lyly.' '

" There you are again mistaken," said I ; " the writers whom
you suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when
you were last in circulation, have long since had their day.
Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, the immortality of which was so
fondly predicted by his admirers,1 and which, in truth, was full
of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of lan-

1 " Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his gentle witt, and the golden pillar
of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary
of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the honey bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and
arte, the pith of morale and the intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the
tongue of Suada in the chamber, the spirite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excel-
lency in print." — HARVEY Pierce' s Supererogation.

102 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

guage, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville has strutted
into obscurity ; and even Lyly, though his writings were once
the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated by a proverb,
is now scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of authors
who wrote and wrangled at the time, have likewise gone down
with all their writings and their controversies. Wave after wave
of succeeding literature has rolled over them, until they are
buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industri-
ous diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for
the gratification of the curious.

kt For my part," I continued, u I consider this mutability of
language a wise precaution of Providence for the benefit of the
world at large, and of authors in particular. To reason from
analogy : we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of vege-
tables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short
time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their success-
ors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of nature would be
a grievance instead of a blessing : the earth would groan with
rank and excessive vegetation, and its surface become a tangled
wilderness. In like manner, the works of genius and learning
decline and make way for subsequent productions. Language
gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors
who have flourished their allotted time ; otherwise the creative
powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind
would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of litera-
ture. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive
multiplication : works had to be transcribed by hand, which
was a slow and laborious operation ; they were written either
on parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was
often erased to make way for another ; or on papyrus, which
was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a lim-
ited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the
leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of
manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely
to monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some meas-
ure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect
of antiquity ; that the fountains of thoughts have not been
broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the
inventions of paper and the press have put an end to all these
restraints : they have made every one a writer, and enabled
every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse itself over the
whole intellectual world. The consequences are alarming.
The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented
into a river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries since, five

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 103

or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library ; but
what would you say to libraries, such as actually exist, contain-
ing three or four hundred thousand volumes ; legions of authors
at the same time busy ; and a press going on with fearfully in-
creasing activity, to double and quadruple the number? Unless
some unforeseen mortality should break out among the progeny
of the Muse, now that she has become so prolific, I tremble for
posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be
sufficient. Criticism may do much ; it increases with the in-
crease of literature, and resembles one of those salutary checks
on population spoken of by economists. All possible encour-
agement, therefore, should be given to the growth of critics,
good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain ; let criticism do
what it may, writers will write, printers will print, and the
world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will
soon be the emplo}Tment of a lifetime merely to learn their
names. Many a man of passable information at the present
day reads scarcely any thing but reviews, and before long a
man of erudition will be little better than a mere walking cata-
logue."

" My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most
drearily in my face, "excuse my interrupting you, but I per-
ceive you are rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of
an author who was making some noise just as I left the world.
His reputation, however, was considered quite temporary. The
learned shook their heads at him, for he was a poor, half-edu-
cated varlet, that knew little of Latin, and nothing of Greek,
and had been obliged to run the country for deer-stealing. I
think his name was Shakspeare. I presume he soon sunk into
oblivion."

"On the contrary," said I, "it is owing to that very man
that the literature of his period has experienced a duration
beyond the ordinary term of English literature. There rise
authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability
of language, because they have rooted themselves in the un-
changing principles of human nature. They are like gigantic
trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream, which,
by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere sur-
face, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, pre-
serve the soil around them from being swept away by the over-
flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and,
perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with
Shakspeare, whom we behold defying the encroachments of
time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his

104 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author merely
from having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve to
say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form
is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clamber-
ing vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds
them."

Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and chuckle,
until at length he broke out into a plethoric fit of laughter that
had well nigh choked him, by reason of his excessive corpu-
lency. " Mighty well ! " cried he, as soon as he could recover
breath, "mighty well! and so you would persuade me that
the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond
deer-stealer ! by a man without learning! by a poet! for-
sooth— a poet!" And here he wheezed forth another fit of
laughter.

I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, which,
however, I pardoned on account of his having flourished in a
less polished age. I determined, nevertheless, not to give up
my point.

" Yes," resumed I positively, u a poet ; for of all writers he
has the best chance for immortality. Others may write from
the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always
understand him. He is the faithful portrayer of Nature, whose
features are alwaj's the same, and always interesting. Prose
writers are voluminous and unwieldy ; their pages are crowded
with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded into tedious-
ness. But with the true poet every thing is terse, touching,
or brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest lan-
guage. He illustrates them by every thing that he sees most
striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of
human life, such as it is passing before him. His writings,
therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the
phrase, of the age in which he lives. They are caskets which
enclose within a small compass the wealth of the language —
its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable
form to posterity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated,
and require now and then to be renewed, as in the case of
Chaucer ; but the brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems
continue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of
literary history. What vast valleys of dulness, filled with
monkish legends and academical controversies ! What bogs of
theological speculations ! What dreary wastes of metaphysics !
Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illuminated
bards, elevated like beacons on their widely-separate heights, to

RURAL FUNERALS. 105

transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to

I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the
poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the door caused
me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to inform
me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a
parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was
silent ; the clasps were closed ; and it looked perfectly unconscious
of all that had passed. I have been to the library two or three
times since, and have endeavored to draw it into further con-
versation, but in vain : and whether all this rambling colloquy
actually took place, or whether it was another of those odd day-
dreams to which I am subject, I have never, to this moment,
been able to discover.

RURAL FUNERALS.

Here's a few flowers! but about midnight more:
The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night

Are strewings fitt'st for graves

You were as flowers now withered : even so

These herblets shall, which we upon you strow. — CYMBELINE.

AMONG the beautiful and simple-hearted customs of rural life
which still linger in some parts of England, are those of strew-
ing flowers before the funerals and planting them at the graves
of departed friends. These, it is said, are the remains of some
of the rites of the primitive church ; but they are of still higher
antiquity, having been observed among the Greeks and Romans,
and frequently mentioned by their writers, and were, no doubt,
the spontaneous tributes of unlettered affection, originating
long before art had tasked itself to modulate sorrow into song,
or story it on the monument. They are now only to be met
with in the most distant and retired places of the kingdom,
where fashion and innovation have not been able to throng in,

1 Thorow earth, and waters deepe,

The pen by skill doth passe :
And featly nyps the worlds abuse,

And shoes us in a glasse,
The vertu and the vice

Of every wight alyve;
The honey combe that bee doth make,

Is not so sweet in hyve,
As are the golden leves

That drops from poet's head ;
Which doth surmount our common talke,

As farro as dross doth lead. — CHURCHYARD.

106 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

and trample out all the curious and interesting traces of the
olden time.

In Glamorganshire, we are told, the bed whereon the corpse
lies is covered with flowers, a custom alluded to in one of the
wild and plaintive ditties of Ophelia :

White his shroud as the mountain snow,

Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which be-wept to the grave did go,

With true love showers.

There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed in
some of the remote villages of the south, at the funeral of a
female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of
white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl, nearest
in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterwards hung up in
the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased. These
chaplets are sometimes made of white paper, in imitation of
flowers, and inside of them is generally a pair of white gloves.
They are intended as emblems of the purity of the deceased,
and the crown of glory which she has received in heaven.

In some parts of the country, also, the dead are carried to
the grave with the singing of. psalms and hymns ; a kind of
triumph, "to show," says Bourne, "that they have finished
their course with joy, and are become conquerors." This, I am
informed, is observed in some of the northern counties, par-
ticularly in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing, though
melancholy effect, to hear, of a still evening, in some lonely
country scene, the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swelling
from a distance, and to see the train slowly moving along the
landscape.

Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmlesse and unhaunted ground,
And as we sing thy dirge, we will

The Daffodill

And other flowers lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone. — HEKRICK.

There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to the
passing funeral in these sequestered places ; for such spectacles,
occurring among the quiet abodes of nature, sink deep into the
soul. As the mourning train approaches, he pauses, uncov-
ered, to let it go by ; he then follows silently in the rear ; some-
times quite to the grave, at other times for a few hundred
yards, and having paid this tribute of respect to the deceased,
turns and resumes his journey.

RURAL FUNERALS. 107

The rich vein of melancholy which runs through the English
character, and gives it some of its most touching and ennobling
graces, is finely evidenced in these pathetic customs, and in the
solicitude shown by the common people for an honored and a
peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, whatever may be his
lowly lot while living, is anxious that some little respect may
be paid to his remains. Sir Thomas Overbury, describing the
" faire and happy milkmaid," observes, "thus lives she, and
all her care is, that she may die in the spring-time, to have store
of flowers stucke upon her winding-sheet.". The poets, too,
who always breathe the feeling of a nation, continually advert
to this fond solicitude about the grave. In "The Maid's
Tragedy," by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful in-
stance of the kind, describing the capricious melancholy of a
broken-hearted girl.

When she sees a bank

Stucfc full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell
Her servants, what a pretty place it were
To bury lovers in ; and make her maids
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.

The custom of decorating graves was once universally preva-
lent ; osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the turf un-
injured, and about them were planted evergreens and flowers.
"We adorn their graves," says Evelyn, in his Sylva, " with
flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man,
which has been compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading
beauties, whose roots being buried in dishonor, rise again in
glory." This usage 1ms now become extremely rare in Eng-
land ; but it may still be met with in the churchyards of re-
tired villages, among the Welsh mountains ; and I recollect an
instance of it at the small town of Ruthen, which lies at the
head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd. I have been told also
by a friend, who was present at the funeral of a young girl in
Glamorganshire, that the female attendants had their aprons
full of flowers, which, as soon as the body was interred, they
stuck about the grave.

He noticed several graves which had been decorated in the
same manner. As. the flowers had been merely stuck in the
ground, and not planted, they had soon withered, and might
be seen in various states of decay ; some drooping, others quite
perished. They were afterwards to be supplanted by holly,
rosemary, and other evergreens ; which on some graves had
grown to great luxuriance, and overshadowed the tombstones.

108 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

There was formerly a melancholy fancifulness in the arrange-
ment of these rustic offerings that had something in it truly
poetical. The rose was sometimes blended with the lily, to
form a general emblem of frail mortality . ' ' This sweet flower, ' '
said Evelyn, "borne on a branch set with thorns, and accom-
panied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive,
umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making so fair
a show for a time, is not yet without its thorns and crosses."
The nature and color of the flowers, and of the ribbons with
which they were tied, had often a particular reference to the
qualities or story of the deceased, or were expressive of the
feelings of the mourner. In an old poem, entitled " Corydon's
Doleful Knell," a lover specifies the decorations he intends to
use:

A garland shall be framed

Bjr Art and Nature's skill,
Of sundry -coloured flowers,

In token of good will.

And sundry-coloured ribands

On ill will bestow;
But chiefly blacke and yellowe

With her to grave shall go.

I'll deck her tomb with flowers

The rarest ever seen ;
And with my tears as showers

I'll keep them fresh and green.

The white rose, we are told, was planted at the grave of a
virgin ; her chaplet was tied with whit-e ribbons, in token of
her spotless innocence ; though sometimes black ribbons were
intermingled, to bespeak the grief of the survivors. The red
rose was occasionally used, in remembrance of such as had
been remarkable for benevolence ; but roses in general were
appropriated to the graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us that the
custom was not altogether extinct in his time, near his dwelling
in the county of Surrey, '-' where the maidens yearly planted
and decked the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-
bushes." And Camden likewise remarks, in his Britannia:
" Here is also a certain custom observed time out of mind, of
planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young
men and maids who have lost their loves ; so that this church-
yard is now full of them."

When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, emblems
of a more gloomy character were used, such as the yew and

RURAL FUNERALS. 109

cj-press ; and if flowers were strewn, they were of the most
melancholy colors. Thus, in poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq.,
(published in 1651,) is the following stanza:

Yet strew

Upon my dismall grave
Such offerings as you have,

Forsaken cypresse and sad yewe ;
For kinder flowers can take no birth
Or growth from such unhappy earth.

In "The Maid's Tragedy," a pathetic little air is introduced,
illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females
who have been disappointed in love.

Lay a garland on my hearse

Of the dismal yew,
Maidens willow branches wear,

Say I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm,

From my hour of birth,
Upon my buried body lie

Lightly, gentle earth.

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and
elevate the mind ; and we have a proof of it in the purity of
sentiment, and the unaffected elegance of thought, which per-
vaded the whole of these funeral observances. Thus, it was
an especial precaution, that none but sweet-scented evergreens
and flowers should be employed. The intention seems to have
been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind
from brooding over the disgraces of perishing mortality, and
to associate the memory of the deceased with the most delicate
and beautiful objects in Nature. There is a dismal process
going on in the grave, ere dust can return to its kindred dust,
which the imagination shrinks from contemplating; and we
seek still to think of the form we have loved, with those refined
associations which it awakened when blooming before us in
youth and beauty. ''Lay her i' the earth," saj's Laertes of
his virgin sister,

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring.

Herrick, also, in his " Dirge of Jephtha," pours forth a fra-
grant flow of poetical thought and image, which in a manner
embalms the dead in the recollections of the living.

110 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,

And make this place all Paradise.

May sweets grow here : and smoke from hence

Fat frankincense.

Let balme and cassia send their scent
From out thy maiden-monument !

May all shie maids at wonted hours

Come forth to strew thy tombe with flowers!

May virgins, when they come to mourn,

Male-incense burn
Upon thine altar, then return,
And leave thee sleeping in thine urn !

I might crowd my pages with extracts from the older British
poets, who wrote when these rites were more prevalent, and de-
lighted frequently to allude to them ; but I have already quoted
more than is necessary. I cannot, however, refrain from giving
a passage from Shakspeare, even though it should appear trite,
which illustrates the emblematical meaning often conveyed in
these floral tributes, and at the same time possesses that magic
of language and appositeness of imagery for which he stands
pre-eminent.

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shall not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured harebell like thy veins ; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine; whom not to slander,
Outsweetened not thy breath.

There is certainly something more affecting in these prompt
and spontaneous offerings of nature, than in the most costly
monuments of art ; the hand strews the flower while the heart
is warm, and the tear falls on the grave as affection is binding
the osier round the sod ; but pathos expires under the slow
labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold conceits of
sculptured marble.

It is greatly to be regretted, that a custom so truly elegant
and touching hap disappeared from general use, and exists only
in the most remote and insignificant villages. But it seems as
if poetical custom always shuns the walks of cultivated societj- .
In proportion as people grow polite, they cease to be poetical.
They talk of poetry, but they have learnt to check its free im-
pulses, to distrust its sallying emotions, and to supply its most
affecting and picturesque usages, by studied form and pompous
ceremonial. Few pageants can be more stately and frigid than

RURAL FUNERALS. HI

an English funeral in town. It is made up of show and gloomy
parade : mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning plumes,
and hireling mourners, who make a mockery of grief. " There
is a grave digged," says Jeremy Taylor, " and a solemn mourn-
ing, and a great talk in the neighbourhood, and when the daies
are finished, they shall be, and they shall be remembered no
more." The associate in the gay and crowded city is soon for-
gotten ; the hurrying succession of new intimates and new
pleasures effaces him from our minds, and the very scenes and
circles in which he moved are incessantly fluctuating. But
funerals in the country are solemnly impressive. The stroke of
death makes a wider space in the village circle, and is an awful
event in the tranquil uniformity of rural life. The passing bell
tolls its knell in every ear ; it steals with its pervading melan-
choly over hill and vale, and saddens all the landscape.

The fixed and unchanging features of the country, also, per-
petuate the memory of the friend with whom we once enjoyed
them ; who was the companion of our most retired walks, and
gave animation to every lonely scene. His idea is associated
with every charm of Nature : we hear his voice in the echo
which he once delighted to awaken ; his spirit haunts the grove
which he once frequented ; we think of him in the wild upland
solitude, or amidst the pensive beauty of the valley. In the
freshness of joyous morning, we remember his beaming smiles
and bounding gayety ; and when sober evening returns, with its
gathering shadows and subduing quiet, we call to mind many
a twilight hour of gentle talk and sweet-souled melancholy.

Each lonely place shall him restore,

For him the tear be duly shed,
Beloved, till life can charm no more,

And mourn'd till pity's self be dead.

Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the deceased
in the country, is that the grave is more immediately in sight
of the survivors. They pass it on their way to prayer ; it meets
their eyes when their hearts are softened by the exercises of
devotion ; they linger about it on the Sabbath, when the mind
is disengaged from worldly cares, and most disposed to turn
aside from present pleasures and present loves, and to sit down
among the solemn mementos of the past. In North Wales,
the peasantry kneel and pray over the graves of their deceased
friends for several Sundays after the interment ; and where
the tender rite of strewing and planting flowers is still practised,

112 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

it is always renewed on Easter, Whitsuntide, and other festi-
vals, when the season brings the companion of former festivity
more vividly to mind. It is also invariably performed by the
nearest relatives and friends ; no menials nor hirelings are em-
ployed, and if a neighbor yields assistance, it would be deemed
an insult to offer compensation.

I have dwelt upon this beautiful rural custom, because, as it
is one of the last, so is it one of the holiest offices of love. The
grave is the ordeal of true affection. It is there that the divine
passion of the soul manifests its superiority to the instinctive
impulse of mere animal attachment. The latter must be con-
tinually refreshed and kept alive by the presence of its object ;
but the love that is seated in the soul can live on long remem-
brance. The mere inclinations of sense languish and decline
with the charms which excited them, and turn with shuddering
disgust from the dismal precincts of the tomb ; but it is thence
that truly spiritual affection rises purified from every sensual
desire, and returns, like a holy flame, to illumine and sanctify
the heart of the survivor.

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we
refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal —
every other affliction to forget ; but this wound we consider it
a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over
in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget
the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though
every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would
willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember
be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would for-
get the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the
tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved ; when
he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its por-
tal ; would accept of consolation that must be bought by forget-
fulness ? — No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the
noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise
its delights ; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed
into the gentle tear of recollection — when the sudden anguish
and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that
we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on
all that it was in the days of its loveliness — who would root
out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes
throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread
a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom ; yet who would ex-
change it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry?
No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There

RURAL FUNERALS. 113

is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the
charms of the living. Oh, the grave ! — the grave ! — It buries
every error — covers every defect — extinguishes every resent-
ment ! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets
and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave
even of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb, that
he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that
lies mouldering before him ?

But the grave of those we loved — what a place for medita-
tion ! There it is that we call up in long review the whole
history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments
lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of
intimacy; — there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the
solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene. The bed of
death, with all its stifled griefs — its noiseless attendance — its
mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring
love ! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling, oh ! how thrilling ! press-
ure of the hand. The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death
to give one more assurance of affection ! The last fond look of
the glazing eye, turned upon us even from the threshold of
existence.

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate ! There
settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit
unrequited, ever}*- past endearment unregarded, of that departed
being, who can never — never — never return to be soothed by
thy contrition !

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul,
or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent — if
thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that
ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment
of thy kindness or thy truth — if thou art a friend, and hast
ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that
generously confided in thee — if thou art a lover and hast ever
given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold
and still beneath thy feet ; then be sure that every unkind look,
every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come throng-
ing back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul
— then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repent-
ant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the
unavailing tear — more deep, more bitter, because unheard and
unavailing.

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of
nature about the grave ; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst,
with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret ; — but take

114 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction ovel
the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the
discharge of thy duties to the living.

IN writing the preceding article it was not intended to give
a full detail of the funeral customs of the English peasantry,
but merely to furnish a few hints and quotations illustrative
of particular rites, to be appended, by way of note, to another
paper, which has been withheld. The article swelled insensi-
bly into its present form, and this is mentioned as an apology
for so brief and casual a notice of these usages, after they have
been amply and learnedly investigated in other works.

I must observe, also, that 1 am well aware that this custom
of adorning graves with flowers prevails in other countries be-
sides England. Indeed, in some it is much more general, and
is observed even by the rich and fashionable ; but it is then
apt to lose its simplicity, and to degenerate into affectation.
Bright, in his travels in Lower Hungary, tells of monuments
of marble, and recesses formed for retirement, with seats
placed among bowers of green-house plants ; and that the
graves generally are covered with the gayest flowers of the
season. He gives a casual picture of filial piety, which I can-
not but describe, for I trust it is as useful as it is delightful to
illustrate the amiable virtues of the sex. " When I was at Ber-
lin," says he, " I followed the celebrated Iffland to the grave.
Mingled with some pomp, you might trace much real feeling.
In the midst of the ceremony, my attention was attracted by a
young woman who stood on a mound of earth, newly covered
with turf, which she anxiously protected from the feet of the
passing crowd. It was the tomb of her parent ; and the figure
of this affectionate daughter presented a monument more strik-
ing than the most costly work of art."

I will barely add an instance of sepulchral decoration that I
once met with among the mountains of Switzerland. It was
at the village of Gersau, which stands on the borders of the
lake of Luzerne, at the foot of Mount Kigi. It was once the
capital of a miniature republic, shut up between the Alps and
the lake, and accessible on the land side only by footpaths.
The whole force of the republic did not exceed six hundred
fighting men ; and a few miles of circumference, scooped out,
as it were, from the bosom of the mountains, comprised its
territory. The village of Gersau seemed separated from the

THE INN KITCHEN. 115

rest of the world, and retained the golden simplicity of a purer
age. It had a small church, with a burying-ground adjoining.
At the heads of the graves were placed crosses of wood or iron.
On some were affixed miniatures, rudely executed, but evidently
attempts at, likenesses of the deceased. On the crosses were
hung chaplets of flowers, some withering, others fresh, as if
occasionally renewed. I paused with interest at this scene ;
I felt that I was at the source of poetical description, for these
were the beautiful, but unaffected offerings of the heart, which
poets are fain to record. In a gayer and more populous place,
I should have suspected them to have been suggested by
factitious sentiment, derived from books ; but the good people
of Gersau knew little of books ; there was not a novel nor
a love poem in the village ; and I question- whether any peas-
ant of the place dreamt, while he was twining a fresh chap-
let for the grave of his mistress, that he was fulfilling one of
the most fanciful rites of poetical devotion, and that he was
practically a poet.

THE INN KITCHEN.

Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn? — Falstaff.

DURING a journey that I once made through the Netherlands,
I had arrived one evening at the Pomme cTOr, the principal
inn of a small Flemish village. It was after the hour of the
table d'hote, so that I was obliged to make a solitary supper
from the relics of its ampler board. The weather was chilly ;
I was seated alone in one end of a great gloomy dining-room,
and my repast being over, I had the prospect before me of a
long dull evening, without any visible means of enlivening it.
I summoned mine host, and requested something to read ; he
brought me the whole literary stock of his household, a Dutch
family Bible, an almanac in the same language, and a number
of old Paris newspapers. As I sat dozing over one of the lat-
ter, reading old news and stale criticisms, my ear was now
and then struck with bursts of laughter which seemed to pro-
ceed from the kitchen. Every one that has travelled on the
Continent must know how favorite a resort the kitchen of a
country inn is to the middle and inferior order of travellers ;
particularly in that equivocal kind of weather when a fire be-
comes agreeable toward evening. 1 threw aside the news-

116 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

paper, and explored my way to the kitchen, to take a peep at
the group that appeared to be so merry. It was composed
partly of travellers who had arrived some hours before in a
diligence, and partly of the usual attendants and hangers-on of
inns. They were seated round a great burnished stove, that
might have been mistaken for an altar, at which they were wor-
shipping. It was covered with various kitchen vessels of re-
splendent brightness ; among which steamed and hissed a huge
copper tea-kettle. A large lamp threw a strong mass of light
upon the group, bringing out many odd features in strong
relief. Its yellow rays partially illumined the spacious kitchen,
dying duskily away into remote corners except where they
settled in mellow radiance on the broad side of a flitch of bacon,
or were reflected back from well-scoured utensils that gleamed
from the midst of obscurity. A strapping Flemish lass, with
long golden pendants in her ears, and a necklace with a golden
heart suspended to it, was the presiding priestess of the temple.

Many of the company were furnished with pipes, and most
of them with some kind of evening potation. I found their
mirth was occasioned by anecdotes which a little swarthy
Frenchman, with a dry weazen face and large whiskers, was
giving of his love adventures ; at the end of each of which
there was one of those bursts of honest unceremonious laugh-
ter, in which a man indulges in that temple of true liberty, an
inn.

As I had no better mode of getting through a tedious blus-
tering evening, I took my seat near the stove, and listened to
a variety of traveller's tales, some very extravagant, and most
very dull. All of them, however, have faded from my treach-
erous memory, except one, which I will endeavor to relate.
I fear, however, it derived its chief zest from the manner in
which it was told, and the peculiar air and appearance of the
narrator. He was a corpulent old Swiss, who had the look of
a veteran traveller. He was dressed in a tarnished green trav-
elling-jacket, with a broad belt round his waist, and a pair of
overalls with buttons from the hips to the ankles. He was of
a full, rubicund countenance, with a double chin, aquiline nose,
and a pleasant twinkling eye. His hair was light, and curled
from under an old green velvet travelling-cap, stuck on one
side of his head. He was interrupted more than once by the
arrival of guests, or the remarks of his auditors ; and paused,
now and then, to replenish his pipe ; at which times he had
generally a roguish leer, and a sly joke, for the buxom kitchen
maid.

THE SPECTEE XRIDEGROOM. 117

I wish my reader could imagine the old fellow lolling in a
huge arm-chair, one arm a-kimbo, the other holding a curiously
twisted tobacco-pipe, formed of genuine ecume de mer, deco-
rated with silver chain and silken tassel — his head cocked on
one side, and a whimsical cut of the eye occasionally, as he
related the following story.

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM.
A TRAVELLER'S TALE.1

He that supper for is dight,

He lyes full cold, I trow, this night !

Yestreen to chamber I him led,

This night Gray-steel has made his bed !

SIR EGER, SIR GRAHAME, and SIR GRAY-STEEL.

ON the summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild
and romantic tract of Upper Germany, that lies not far from
the confluence of the Main and the Rhine, there stood, many,
many years since, the Castle of the Baron Von Landshort. It
is now quite fallen to decay, and almost buried among beech
trees and dark firs ; above which, however, its old watch-tower
may still be seen struggling, like -the former possessor I have
mentioned, to carry a high head, and look down upon a neigh-
boring country.

The Baron was a dry branch of the great family of Katzen-
ellenbogen,2 and inherited the relics of the property, and all
the pride of his ancestors. Though the warlike disposition of
his predecessors had much impaired the family possessions, yet
the Baron still endeavored to keep up some show of former
state. The times were peaceable, and the German nobles, in
general, had abandoned their inconvenient old castles, perched
like eagle's nests among the mountains, and had built more
convenient residences in the valleys ; still the Baron remained
proudly drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing with heredi-
tary inveteracy all the old family feuds ; so that he was on ill

1 The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, will perceive that the
above Tale must have been suggested to the old Swiss by a little French anecdote,
a circumstance said to have taken place at Paris.

2 i.e., CAT'S ELBOW — the name of a family of those parts, very powerful in former
times. The appellation, we are told, was given in compliment to a peerless dame
of the family, celebrated for a fine arm.

118 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

terms with some of his nearest neighbors, on account of disputes
that had happened between their great-great-grandfathers.

The Baron had but one child, a daughter ; but Nature, when
she grants but one child, always compensates by making it a
prodigy ; and so it was with the daughter of the Baron. All
the nurses, gossips, and country cousins, assured her father
that she had not her equal for beauty in all Germany ; and who
should know better than they? She had, moreover, been
brought up with great care, under the superintendence of two
maiden aunts, who had spent some years of their earty life at
one of the little German courts, and were skilled in all the
branches of knowledge necessary to the education of a fine
lady. Under their instructions, she became a miracle of ac-
complishments. By the time she was eighteen she could em-
broider to admiration, and had worked whole histories of the
saints in tapestry, with such strength of expression in their
countenances, that they looked like so many souls in purga-
tory. She could read without great difficult}', and had spelled
her way through several church legends, and almost all the
chivalric wonders of the Heldenbuch. She had even made
considerable proficiency in writing, could sign her own name
without missing a letter, and so legibly, that her aunts could
read it without spectacles. She excelled in making little elegant
good-for-nothing lady-like knickknacks of all kinds ; was versed
in the most abstruse dancing of the day ; played a number of
airs on the harp and guitar; and knew all the tender ballads of
the Minnie-lieders by heart.

Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and coquettes in their
younger days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant guard-
ians and strict censors of the conduct of their niece ; for there
is no duenna so rigidly prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a
superannuated coquette. She was rarely suffered out of their
sight ; never went beyond the domains of the castle, unless well
attended, or rather well watched ; had continual lectures read
to her about strict decorum and implicit obedience ; and, as to
the men — pah ! she was taught to hold them at such a distance
and in such absolute distrust, that, unless properly authorized,
she would not have cast a glance upon the handsomest cavalier
in the world — no, not if he were even dying at her feet.

The good effects of this system were wonderfully apparent.
The young lady was a pattern of docility and correctness.
While others were wasting their sweetness in the glare of the
world, and liable to be plucked and thrown aside by every
hand, she was coyly blooming into fresh and lovely woman-

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 119

hood under the protection of those immaculate spinsters, like
a rose-bud blushing forth among guardian thorns. Her aunts
looked upon her with pride and exultation, and vaunted that
though all the other young ladies in the world might go astray,
yet, thank Heaven, nothing of the kind could happen to the
heiress of Katzenellenbogen.

But however scantily the Baron Von Landshort might be
provided with children, his household was by no means a small
one, for Providence had enriched him with abundance of poor
relations. They, one and all, possessed the affectionate dispo-
sition common to humble relatives ; were wonderfully attached
to the Baron, and took every possible occasion to come in
swarms and enliven the castle. All family festivals were com-
memorated by these good people at the Baron's expense ; and
when they were filled with good cheer, they would declare that
there was nothing on earth so delightful as these family meet-
ings, these jubilees of the heart.

The Baron, though a small man, had a large soul, and it
swelled with satisfaction at the consciousness of being the
greatest man in the little world about him. He loved to tell
long stories about the stark old warriors whose portraits looked
grimly down from the walls around, and he found no listeners
equal to those who fed at his expense. He was much given to
the marvellous, and a firm believer in all those supernatural
tales with which every mountain and valley in Germany
abounds. The faith of his guests even exceeded his own : they
listened to every tale of wonder with open eyes and mouth,
and never failed to be astonished, even though repeated for
the hundredth time. Thus lived the Baron Von Landshort,
the oracle of his table, the absolute monarch of his little terri-
tory, and happy, above all things, in the persuasion that he
was the wisest man of the age.

At the time of which my story treats, there was a great
family-gathering at the castle, on an affair of the utmost im-
portance: — it was to receive the destined bridegroom of the
Baron's daughter. A negotiation had been carried on between
the father and an old nobleman of Bavaria, to unite the dignity
of their houses by the marriage of their children. The prelimi-
naries had been conducted with proper punctilio. The young
people were betrothed without seeing each other, and the time
was appointed for the marriage ceremony. The young Count
Von Altenburg had been recalled from the army for the pur-
pose, and was actually on his way to the Baron's to receive
his bride. Missives had even been received from him, from

120 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Wurtzburg, where he was accidentally detained, mentioning the
day and hour when he might be expected to arrive.

The castle was in a tumult of preparation to give him a
suitable welcome. The fair bride had been decked out with
uncommon care. The two aunts had superintended her toilet,
and quarrelled the whole morning about every article of her
dress. The young lady had taken advantage of their contest
to follow the bent of her own taste ; and fortunately it was a
good one. She looked as lovely as youthful bridegroom could
desire ; and the flutter of expectation heightened the lustre of
her charms.

The suffusions that mantled her face and neck, the gentle
heaving of the bosom, the eye now and then lost in reverie, all
betrayed the soft tumult that was going on in her little heart.
The aunts were continually hovering around her ; for maiden
aunts are apt to take great interest in affairs of this nature ;
they were giving her a world of staid counsel how to deport
herself, what to say, and in what manner to receive the ex-
pected lover.

The Baron was no less busied in preparations. He had, in
truth, nothing exactly to do ; but he was naturally a fuming,
bustling little man, and could not remain passive when all the
world was in a hurry. He worried from top to bottom of the
castle, with an air of infinite anxiety ; he continually called the
servants from their work to exhort them to be diligent, and
buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly restless and im-
portunate as a blue-bottle fly of a warm summer's day.

In the mean time, the fatted calf had been killed ; the forests
had rung with the clamor of the huntsmen ; the kitchen was
crowded with good cheer ; the cellars had yielded up whole
oceans of Rhein-wein and Ferne-wein, and even the great Hei-
delberg tun had been laid under contribution. Every thing
was ready to receive the distinguished guest with /Saus und
Braus in the true spirit of German hospitality — but the guest
delayed to make his appearance. Hour rolled after hour. The
sun that had poured his downward rays upon the rich forests
of the Odenwald, now just gleamed along the summits of the
mountains. The Baron mounted the highest tower, and strained
his eyes in hope of catching a distant sight of the Count and
his attendants. Once he thought he beheld them ; the sound
of horns came floating from the valley, prolonged by the moun-
tain echoes : a number of horsemen were seen far below, slowly
advancing along the road ; but when they had nearly reached
the foot of the mountain, they suddenly struck off in a different

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 121

direction. The last ray of sunshine departed — the bats began
to flit by in the twilight — the road grew dimmer and dimmer
to the view : and nothing appeared stirring in it, but now and
then a peasant lagging homeward from his labor.

While the old castle of Landshort was in this state of per-
plexity, a very interesting scene was transacting in a different
part of the Odenwald.

The young Count Von Altenburg was tranquilly pursuing his
route in that sober jog-trot way in which a man travels toward
matrimony when his friends have taken all the trouble and un-
certainty of courtship off his hands, and a bride is waiting for
him, as certainly as a dinner, at the end of his journey. He
had encountered at Wurtzburg a youthful companion in arms,
with whom he had seen some service on the frontiers ; Herman
Von Starkenfaust, one of the stoutest hands and worthiest
hearts of German chivalry, who was now returning from the
army. His father's castle was not far distant from the old
fortress of Landshort, although an hereditary feud rendered the
families hostile, and strangers to each other.

In the warm-hearted moment of recognition, the young
friends related all their past adventures and fortunes, and the
Count gave the whole history of his intended nuptials with a
young lady whom he had never seen, but of whose charms he
had received the most enrapturing descriptions.

As the route of the friends lay in the same direction, they
agreed to perform the rest of their journey together ; and that
they might do it the more leisurely, set off from Wurtzburg at
an early hour, the Count having given directions for his retinue
to follow and overtake him.

They beguiled their wayfaring with recollections of their
military scenes and adventures ; but the Count was apt to be a
little tedious, now and then, about the reputed charms of his
bride, and the felicity that awaited him.

In this way they had entered among the mountains of the
Odenwald, and were traversing one of its most lonely and
thickly wooded passes. It is well known that the forests of
Germany have always been as much infested by robbers as
its castles by spectres ; and, at this time, the former were par-
ticularly numerous, from the hordes of disbanded soldiers wan-
dering about the country. It will not appear extraordinary,
therefore, that the cavaliers were attacked by a gang of these
stragglers, in the midst of the forest. They defended them-
selves with bravery, but were nearly overpowered when the
Count's retinue arrived to their assistance. At sight of them

122 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the robbers fled, but not until the Count had received a mortal
wound. He was slowly and carefully conveyed back to the city
of Wurtzburg, and a friar summoned from a neighboring con-
Vent, who was famous for his skill in administering to both soul
and body. But half of his skill was superfluous ; the moments
of the unfortunate Count were numbered.

With his dying breath he entreated his friend to repair in-
stantly to the castle of Landshort, and explain the fatal cause
of his not keeping his appointment with his bride. Though not
the most ardent of lovers, he was one of the most punctilious
of men, and appeared earnestly solicitous that his mission
should be speedily and courteously executed. " Unless this is
done," said he, " I shall not sleep quietly in my grave ! " He
repeated these last words with peculiar solemnity. A request,
at a moment so impressive, admitted no hesitation. Starken-
faust endeavored to soothe him to calmness ; promised faith-
fully to execute his wish, and gave him his hand in solemn
pledge. The dying man pressed it in acknowledgment, but
soon lapsed into delirium — raved about his bride — his engage-
ments^— his plighted word; ordered his horse, that he might
ride to the castle of Landshort, and expired in the fancied act
of vaulting into the saddle.

Starkeufaust bestowed a sigh, and a soldier's tear on the un-
timely fate of his comrade ; and then pondered on the awkward
mission he had undertaken. His heart was heavy, and his head
perplexed ; for he was to present himself an unbidden guest
among hostile people, and to damp their festivity with tidings
fatal to their hopes. Still there were certain whisperings of
curiosity in his bosom to see this far-famed beauty of Katzen-
ellenbogen, so cautiously shut up from the world ; for he was a
passionate admirer of the sex, and there was a dash of eccen-
tricity and enterprise in his character, that made him fond of all
singular adventure.

Previous to his departure, he made all due arrangements with
the hoi}- fraternity of the convent for the funeral solemnities of
his friend, who was to be buried in the cathedral of Wurtzburg,
near some of his illustrious relatives ; and the mourning retinue
of the Count took charge of his remains.

It is now high time that we should return to the ancient fam-
ily of Katzenellenbogen, who were impatient for their guest,
and still more for their dinner ; and to the worthy little Baron,
whom we left airing himself on the watch-tower.

Night closed in, but still no guest arrived. The Baron de-
scended from the tower in despair. The banquet, which had

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 123

been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postponed.
The meats were already overdone ; the cook in an agony ; and
the whole household had the look of a garrison that had been
reduced by famine. The Baron was obliged reluctantly to give
orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. All
were seated at table, and just on the point of commencing,
when the sound of a horn from without the gate gave notice
of the approach of a stranger. Another long blast filled the
old courts of the castle with its echoes, and was answered by
the warder from the walls. The Baron hastened to receive his
future son-in-law.

The drawbridge had been let down, and the stranger was
before the gate. He was a tall, gallant cavalier, mounted on a
black steed. His countenance was pale, but he had a beaming,
romantic eye, and an air of stately melancholy. The Baron
was a little mortified that he should have come in this simple,
solitary style. His dignity for a moment was ruffled, and he
felt disposed to consider it a want of proper respect for the im-
portant occasion, and the important family with which he was
to be connected. He pacified himself, however, with the con-
clusion that it must have been youthful impatience which had
induced him thus to spur on sooner than his attendants.

" I am sorry," said the stranger, " to break in upon you thus
unseasonably — "

Here the Baron interrupted him with a world of compliments
and greetings ; for, to tell the truth, he prided himself upon his
courtesy and eloquence. The stranger attempted, once or
twice, to stem the torrent of words, but in vain ; so he bowed
his head and suffered it to flow on. By the time the Baron had
come to a pause, they had reached the inner court of the castle ;
and the stranger was again about to speak, when he was once
more interrupted by the appearance of the female part of the
family, leading forth the shrinking and blushing bride. He
uazed on her for a moment as one entranced ; it seemed as if
his whole soul beamed forth in the gaze, and rested upon that
lovely form. One of the maiden aunts whispered something in
her ear ; she made an effort to speak ; her moist blue eye was
timidly raised, gave a shy glance of inquiry on the stranger,
and was cast again to the ground. The words died away ; but
there was a sweet smile playing about her lips, and a soft dim-
pling of the cheek, that showed her glance had not been un-
satisfactory. It was impossible for a girl of the fond age of
eighteen, highly predisposed for love and matrimony, not to be
pleased with so gallant a cavalier.

124 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

The late hour at which the guest had arrived, left no time
for parley. The Baron was peremptory, and deferred all par-
ticular conversation until the. morning, and led the way to the
untasted banquet.

It was served up in the great hall of the castle. Around the
walls hung the hard-favored portraits of the heroes of the house
of Katzenelleubogen, and the trophies which they had gained
in the field and in the chase. Hacked corselets, splintered
jousting spears, and tattered banners, were mingled with the
spoils of sylvan warfare : the jaws of the wolf, and the tusks
of the boar, grinned horribly among cross-bows and battle-
axes, and a huge pair of antlers branched immediately over the
head of the youthful bridegroom.

The cavalier took but little notice of the company or the
entertainment. He scarcely tasted the banquet, but seemed
absorbed in admiration of his bride. He conversed in a low
tone, that could not be overheard — for the language of love is
never loud ; but where is the female ear so dull that it cannot
catch the softest whisper of the lover? There was a mingled
tenderness and gravity in his manner, that appeared to have a
powerful effect upon the young lady. Her color came and
went, as she listened with deep attention. Now and then she
made some blushing reply, and when his eye was turned away,
she would steal a sidelong glance at his romantic countenance,
and heave a gentle sigh of tender happiness. It was evident
that the young couple were completely enamoured. The aunts,
who were deeply versed in the mysteries of the heart, de-
clared that they had fallen in love with each other at first
sight.

The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for the guests
were all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon
light purses and mountain air. The Baron told his best and
longest stories, and never had he told them so well, or with
such great effect. If there was any thing marvellous, his
auditors were lost in astonishment ; and if any thing facetious,
they were sure to laugh exactly in the right place. The Baron,
it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any
joke, but a dull one ; it was always enforced, however, by a
bumper of excellent Hockheimer; and even a dull joke, at
one's own table, served up with jolly old wine, is irresistible.
Many good things were said by poorer and keener wits, that
would not bear repeating, except on similar occasions ; many
sly speeches whispered in ladies' ears, that almost convulsed
them with suppressed laughter ; and a song or two roared out

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 125

by a poor, but merry and broad-faced cousin of the Baron, that
absolutely made the maiden aunts hold up their fans.

Amidst all this revelry, the stranger guest maintained a most
singular and unseasonable gravity. His countenance assumed
a deeper cast of dejection as the evening advanced, and,
strange as it may appear, even the Baron's jokes seemed only
to render him the more melancholy. At times he was lost in
thought, and at times there was a perturbed and restless wan-
dering of the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. His
conversations with the bride became more and more earnest
and mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal over the fair
serenity of her brow, and tremors to run through her tender
frame.

All this could not escape the notice of the company. Their
gayety was chilled by the unaccountable gloom of the bride-
groom ; their spirits were infected ; whispers and glances were
interchanged, accompanied by shrugs and dubious shakes of the
head. The song and the laugh grew less and less frequent ;
there were dreary pauses in the conversation, which were at
length succeeded by wild tales, and supernatural legends.
One dismal story produced another still more dismal, and the
Baron nearly frightened some of the ladies into hysterics
with the history of the goblin horseman that carried away
the fair Leonora — a dreadful story, which ha s since been
put into excellent verse, and is read and believed by all the
world.

The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound attention.
He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the Baron, and as the story
drew to a close, began gradually to rise from his seat, growing
taller and taller, until, in the Baron's entranced eye, he seemed
almost to tower into a giant. The moment the tale was fin-
ished, he heaved a deep sigh, and took a solemn farewell of the
company. They were all amazement. The Baron was per-
fectly thunderstruck.

"What! going to leave the castle at midnight? why, every
thing was prepared for his reception ; a chamber was ready for
him if he wished to retire."

The stranger shook his head mournfully, and mysteriously ;
" I must lay my head in a different chamber to-night ! "

There was something in this reply, and the tone in which it
was uttered, that made the Baron's heart misgive him ; but he
rallied his forces, and repeated his hospitable entreaties. The
stranger shook his head silently, but positively, at every offer ;
and, waving his farewell to the company, stalked slowly out of

126 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the hall. The maiden aunts were absolutely petrified — the
bride hung her head, and a tear stole to her eye.

The Baron followed the stranger to the great court of the
castle, where the black charger stood pawing the earth, and
snorting with impatience. When they had reached the portal,
whose deep archway was dimly lighted by a cresset, the stran-
ger paused, and addressed the Baron in a hollow tone of voice,
which the vaulted roof rendered still more sepulchral. " Now
that we are alone," said he,. " I will impart to you the reason of
my going. I have a solemn, an indispensable engagement —

" Why," said the Baron, ." cannot you send some one in your
place ? ' '

" It admits of no substitute — I must attend it in person — I
must away to Wurtzburg cathedral —

"Ay," said the Baron, plucking up spirit, "but not until
to-morrow — to-morrow you shall take your bride there."

"No! no!" replied the stranger, with ten-fold solemnity,
"my engagement is with no bride — the worms! the worms
expect me ! I am a dead man — I have been slain by robbers —
my body lies at Wurtzburg — at midnight I am to be buried —
the grave is waiting for me — I must keep my appointment ! ' '

He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the drawbridge,
and the clattering of his horse's hoofs was lost in the whistling
of the night-blast.

The Baron returned to the hall in the utmost consternation,
and related what had passed. Two ladies fainted outright;
others sickened at the idea of having banqueted with a spectre.
It was the opinion of some, that this might be the wild hunts-
man famous in German legend. Some talked of mountain
sprites, of wood-demons, and of other supernatural beings,
with which the good people of Germany have been so griev-
ously harassed since time immemorial. One of the poor rela
tions ventured to suggest that it might be some sportive evasion
of the young cavalier, and that the very gloominess of the ca-
price seemed to accord with so melancholy a personage. This,
however, drew on him the indignation of the whole company, and
especially of the Baron, who looked upon him as little better than
an infidel ; so that he was fain to abjure his heresy as speedily
as possible, and come into the faith of the true believers.

But, whatever may have been the doubts entertained, they
were completely put to an end by the arrival, next day, of reg-
ular missives, confirming the intelligence of the young Count's
murder, and his interment in Wurtzburg cathedral.

The dismay at the castle may well be imagined. The Baron

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGftOOM. 12T

shut himself up in his chamber. The guests who had come to
rejoice with him could not think of abandoning him in his dis-
tress. They wandered about the courts, or collected in groups
in the hall, shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders,
at the troubles of so good a man ; and sat longer than ever at
table, and ate and drank more stoutly than ever, by way of
keeping up their spirits. But the situation of the widowed
bride was the most pitiable. To have lost a husband before
she had even embraced him — and such a husband ! if the very
spectre could be so gracious and noble what must have been the
living man ? She filled the house with lamentations.

On the night of the second day of her widowhood, she had
retired to her chamber, accompanied by one of her aunts, who
insisted on sleeping with her. The aunt, who was one of the
best tellers of ghost stories in all Germany, had just been re-
counting one of her longest, and had fallen asleep in the very
midst of it. The chamber was remote, and overlooked a small
garden. The niece lay pensively gazing at the beams of the
rising moon, as they trembled on the leaves of an aspen tree
before the lattice. The castle clock had just told midnight,
when a soft strain of music stole up from the garden. She
rose hastily from her bed, and stepped lightly to the window.
A tall figure stood among the shadows of the trees. As it
raised its head, a beam of moonlight fell upon the countenance.
Heaven and earth ! she beheld the Spectre Bridegroom ! A
loud shriek at that moment burst upon her ear, and her aunt,
who had been awakened by the music, and had followed her
silently to the window, fell into her arms. When she looked
again, the spectre had disappeared.

Of the two females, the aunt now required the most soothing,
for she was perfectly beside herself with terror. As to the
young lady, there was something, even in the spectre of her
lover, that seemed endearing. There was still the semblance
of manly beauty ; and though the shadow of a man is but little
calculated to satisfy the affections of a love-sick girl, yet, where
the substance is not to be had, even that is consoling. The
aunt declared she would never sleep in that chamber again ; the
niece, for once, was refractory, and declared as strongly that
she would sleep in no other in the castle : the consequence was,
that she had to sleep in it alone ; but she drew a promise from
her aunt not to relate the story of the spectre, lest she should
be denied the only melancholy pleasure left her on earth — that
of inhabiting the chamber over which the guardian shade of her
lover kept its nightly vigils.

128 THE SKETCH-IS OOK.

How long the good old lady would have observed this prom-
ise is uncertain, for she dearly loved to talk of the marvellous,
and there is a triumph in being the first to tell a frightful story ;
it is, however, still quoted in the neighborhood, as a memora-
ble instance of female secrecy, that she kept it to herself for a
whole week ; when she was suddenly absolved from all further
restraint, by intelligence brought to the breakfast-table one
morning that the young lady was not to be found. Her room
was empty — the bed had not been slept in — the window was
open — and the bird had flown !

The astonishment and concern with which the intelligence
was received, can only be imagined by those who have wit-
nessed the agitation which the mishaps of a great man cause
among his friends. Even the poor relations paused for a
moment from the indefatigable labors of the trencher ; when
the aunt, who had at first been struck speechless, wrung her
hands and shrieked out, " The goblin! the goblin! she's car-
ried away by the goblin ! "

In a few words she related the fearful scene of the garden,
and concluded that the spectre must have carried off his bride.
Two of the domestics corroborated the opinion, for they had
heard the clattering of a horse's hoofs down the mountain about
midnight, and had no doubt that it was the spectre on his black
charger, bearing her away to the tomb. All present were
struck with the direful probability ; for events of the kind are
extremely common in Germany, as many well-authenticated his-
tories bear witness.

What a lamentable situation was that of the poor Baron !
What a heart-rending dilemma for a fond father, and a mem-
ber of the great family of Katzenellenbogen ! His only daugh-
ter had either been rapt away to the grave, or he was to have
some wood-demon for a son-in-law, and, perchance, a troop of
goblin grand-children. As usual, he was completely bewil-
dered, and all the castle in an uproar. The men were ordered
to take horse, and scour every road and path and glen of the
Odenwald. §? he Baron himself had just drawn on his jack-
boots, girded on his sword, and was about to mount his steed
to sally forth on the doubtful quest, when he was brought to a
pause by a new apparition. A lady was seen approaching the
castle, mounted on a palfrey attended by a cavalier on horse-
back. She galloped up to the gate, sprang from her horse, and
falling at the Baron's feet embraced his knees. It was his lost
daughter, and her companion — the Spectre Bridegroom ! The
Baron was astounded. He looked at his daughter, then at the

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 129

Spectre, and almost doubted the evidence of his senses. The
latter, too, was wonderfully improved in his appearance, since
his visit to the world of spirits. His dress was splendid, and
set off a noble figure of manly symmetry. He was no longer
pale and melancholy. His fine countenance was flushed with
the glow of youth, and joy rioted in his large dark eye.

The mysterj was soon cleared up. The cavalier (for in
truth, as you must have known all the while, he was no goblin)
announced himself as Sir Herman Von Starkenfaust. He re-
lated his adventure with the young Count. He told how he
had hastened to the castle to deliver the unwelcome tidings, but
that the eloquence of the Baron had interrupted him in every
attempt to tell his tale. How the sight of the bride had com-
pletely captivated him, and that to pass a few hours near her,
he had tacitly suffered the mistake to continue. How he had
been sorely perplexed in what way to make a decent retreat,
until the Baron's goblin stories had suggested his eccentric
exit. How, fearing the feudal hostility of the family, he had
repeated his visits by stealth — had haunted the garden be-
neath the young lady's window — had wooed — had won —
had borne away in triumph — and, in a word, had wedded the
fair.

Under any other circumstances, the Baron would have been
inflexible, for he was tenacious of paternal authority, and de-
voutly obstinate in all family feuds ; but he loved his daughter ;
he had lamented her as lost ; he rejoiced to find her still alive ;
and, though her husband was of a hostile house, yet, thank
Heaven, he was not a goblin. There was something, it must
be acknowledged, that did not exactly accord with his notions
of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had passed upon him
of his being a dead man ; but several old friends present, who
had served in the wars, assured him that every stratagem was
excusable in love, and that the cavalier was entitled to especial
privilege, having lately served as a trooper.

Matters, therefore, were happily arranged. The Baron par-
doned the young couple on the spot. The revels- at the castle
were resumed. The poor relations overwhelmed this new mem-
ber of the family with loving kindness ; he was so gallant, so
generous — and so rich. The aunts, it is true, were somewhat
scandalized that their system of strict seclusion and passive
obedience should be so badly exemplified, but attributed it all
to their negligence in not having the windows grated. One of
them was particularly mortified at having her marvellous story
marred, and that the only spectre she had ever seen should turn

130 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

out a counterfeit ; but the niece seemed perfectly happy at hav-
ing found him substantial flesh and blood — and so the story
ends.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. '

When I behold, wijth deep astonishment,
To famous Westminster how there resorte,
Living in brasse or stony monument,
The princes and the worthies of all sorte;
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie,
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,
And looke upon offenselesse majesty,
Naked of pomp or earthly domination?
And how a play-game of a painted stone
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites,
Whome all the world which late they stood upon,
Could not content or quench their appetites.

Life is a frost of cold felicitie,

And death the thaw of all our vanitie.

Christolero's Epigrams, by T. B., 1598.

ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days, in the
latter part of autumn, when the shadows of morning and even-
ing almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline
of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westmin-
ster Abbey. There was something congenial to the season in
the mournful magnificence of the old pile ; and as I passed its
threshold, it seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiq-
uity, and losing myself among the shades of former ages.

I entered from the inner court of Westminster school, through
a long, low, vaulted passage, that had an almost subterranean
look, being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in
the massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant
view of the cloisters, with the figure of an old verger, in his
black gown, moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming
like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs.

The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic
remains, prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. The
cloister still retains something of the quiet and seclusion of
former days. The gray walls are discolored by damps, and
crumbling with age ; a coat of hoary moss has gathered over
the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured the
death's heads, and other funeral emblems. The sharp touches
of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the arches ; the

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 131

roses which adorned the key-stones have lost their leafy beauty ;
every thing bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time,
which yet has something touching and pleasing in its very
decay.

The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the
square of the cloisters ; beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in
the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage
with a kind of dusky splendor. From between the arcades,
the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky, or a passing cloud ; and
beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the
azure heaven.

As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this min-
gled picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to
decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones, which formed the
pavement beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three
figures, rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn away by the
footsteps of many generations. They were the effigies of three
of the early abbots ; the epitaphs were entirely effaced ; the
names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later
times ; (Vitalis Abbas. 1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Ab-
bas. 1114, and Laurentius. Abbas. 1176.) I remained some
little while, musing over these casual relics of antiquity, thus
left like wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale
but that such beings had been and had perished ; teaching no
moral but the futility of that pride which hopes still to exact
homage in its ashes, and to live in an inscription. A little
longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated, and the
monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet look-
ing down upon these gravestones, I was roused by the sound of
the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress to buttress, and
echoing among the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this
warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and tell-
ing the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us
onward towards the grave.

I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the interior
of the abbey. On entering here, the magnitude of the building
breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the
cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of
gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to such
an amazing height ; and man wandering about their bases,
shrunk into insignificance in comparison with his own handi-
work. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice produce
a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly
about, as if fearful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the

132 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

tomb ; while every footfall whispers along the walls, and chat-
ters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the quiet
we have interrupted.

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down
upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence.
We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of
the great men of past times, who have filled history with their
deeds, and the earth with their renown. And yet it almost pro-
vokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition, to see how they
are crowded together, and jostled in the dust ; what parsimony
is observed in doling out a scant}7 nook — a gloomy corner — a
little portion of earth to those whom, when alive, kingdoms
could not satisfy ; and how many shapes, and forms, and arti-
fices, are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger,
and save from forgetfulness, for a few short years, a name
which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and
admiration.

I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end
of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monu-
ments are generally simple ; for the lives of literary men afford
no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakspeare and Addison
have statues erected to their memories ; but the greater part
have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Not-
withstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always
observed that the visitors to the abbey remain 'ongest about
them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold
curiosity or vague admiration with which the}' gaze on the
splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger
about these as about the tombs of friends and companions ; for
indeed there is something of companionship between the author
and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only
through the medium of history, which is continually growing
faint and obscure ; but the intercourse between the author and
his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate. He has
lived for them more than for himself ; he has sacrificed sur-
rounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the delights of
social life, that he might the more intimately commune with
distant minds and distant ages. Well may the world cherish
his renown ; for it has been purchased, not b}- deeds of violence
and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well
may posterity be grateful to his memory ; for he has left it an
inheritance, not of empty names and sounding actions, but
whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden
veins of language.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 133

From Poet's Corner I continued ray stroll towards that part
of the abbey which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I
wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now
occupied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every
turn, I met with some illustrious name, or the cognizance of
some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts
into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of
quaint effigies : some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion ;
others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed
together ; warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle ; prel-
ates, with crosiers and mitres ; and nobles in robes and coro-
nets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so
strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent,
it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled
city, where every being had been suddenly transmuted into
stone.

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a
knight in complete armor. A large buckler was on one arm ;
the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the
breast ; the face was almost covered by the morion ; the legs
were crossed in token of the warrior's having been engaged in
the hoi}' war. It was the tomb of a crusader ; of one of those
military enthusiasts, who so strangely mingled religion and ro-
mance, and whose exploits form the connecting link between
fact and fiction — between the history and the fairy tale. There
is something extremely picturesque in the tombs of these
adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial bear-
ings and Gothic sculpture. They comport with the antiquated
chapels in which they are generally found ; and in considering
them, the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary
associations, the romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp and
pageantry, which poetry has spread over the wars for the Sep*
ulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times utterly gone by ;
of beings passed from recollection ; of customs and manners
with which ours have no affinity. They are like objects from
some strange and distant land, of which we have no certain
knowledge, and about which all our conceptions are vague and
visionary. There is something extremely solemn and awful in
those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended as if in the sleep of
death, or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an
effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings than the fanci-
ful attitudes, the overwrought conceits, and allegorical groups,
which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck,
also, with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral iuscrip-

134 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

tions. There was a noble way, in former times, of saying
things simply, and yet saying them proudly : and I do not know
an epitaph that breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth
and honorable lineage, than one which affirms, of a noble
house, that ''all the brothers were brave, and all the sisters
virtuous."

In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner, stands a monument
which is among the most renowned achievements of modern
art ; but which, to me, appears horrible rather than sublime.
It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom
of the monument is represented as throwing open its marble
doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is
falling from his fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his
victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms,
who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow.
The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit ; we almost
fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph, bursting from the
distended jaws of the spectre. — But why should we thus seek
to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors
round the tomb of those we love ? The grave should be sur-
rounded by every thing that might inspire tenderness and ven-
eration for the dead ; or that might win the living to virtue. It
is the place, not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and
meditation.

While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles,
studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence
from without occasionally reaches the ear : — the rumbling of
the passing equipage ; the murmur of the multitude ; or perhaps
the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is striking with the
deathlike repose around ; and it has a strange effect upon the
feelings, thus to hear the surges of active life hurrying along
and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre.

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and
from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away ;
the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less
frequent ; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening
prayers ; and I saw at a distance the choristers, in their white
surplices, crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood
before the entrance to Henry the Seventies chapel. A flight of
steps leads up to it, through a deep and gloomy, but magnifi-
cent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought,
turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to
admit the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous of
sepulchres.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 135

On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architec-
ture, and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very
walls are wrought into universal ornament, encrusted with
tracery, and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of
saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the
chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended
aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the
wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the
Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, though 'with the gro-
tesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of
the stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with
their scarfs and swords ; and above them are suspended their
banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting
the splendor of gold and purple and crimson, with the cold gray
fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum
stands the sepulchre of its founder, — his effigy, with that
of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole
surrounded by a superbly wrought brazen railing.

There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence ; this strange
mixture of tombs and trophies ; these emblems of living and
aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust
and oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate.
Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness,
than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng
and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of the
knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gor-
geous banners that were once borne before them, my imagina-
tion conjured up the scene when this hall was bright with the
valor and beauty of the land ; glittering with the splendor of
jewelled rank and military array ; alive with the tread of many
feet, and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had passed
away ; the silence of death had settled again upon the place,
interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds, which had
found their way into the chapel, and built their nests among
its friezes and pendants — sure signs of solitariness and deser-
tion. When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they
were those of men scattered far and wide about the world ; some
tossing upon distant seas ; some under arms in distant lands ;
some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets : all
seeking to deserve one more distinction in this mansion of
shadowy honors — the melancholy reward of a monument.

Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touch-
ing instance of the equality of the grave, which brings down

136 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the oppressor to a level with the oppressed, and mingles the
dust of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre
of the haughty Elizabeth ; in the other is that of her victim,
the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day, but
some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter,
mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Eliza-
beth's sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy
heaved at the grave of her rival.

A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies
buried. The light struggles dimly through windows darkened
by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and
the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A
marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which
is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem
— the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down
to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the
chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary.

The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I
could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest
repeating the evening service, -and the faint responses of the
choir ; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. The still-
ness, the desertion and obscurity that were gradually prevail-
ing around, gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the
place :

For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel — nothing's heard,
For nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust, and an endless darkness.

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the
ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling
as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume
and grandeur accord with this mighty building ! With what
pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their
awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the
silent sepulchre vocal ! — And now they rise in triumph and ac-
clamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes,
and piling sound on sound. — And now they pause, and the soft
voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody ; they
soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to play about
•these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the peal-
ing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into
music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn
cadences ! What solemn sweeping concords ! It grows more

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 137

and more dense and powerful — it fills the vast pile, and seems
to jar the very walls — the ear is stunned — the senses are over-
whelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee — it is rising
from the earth to heaven — the very soul seems rapt away, and
floated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony !

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain
of music is apt sometimes to inspire : the shadows of evening;
were gradually thickening round me; the monuments began
to cast deeper and deeper gloom ; and the distant clock again
gave token of the slowly waning day.

I rose, and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended
the flight of steps which lead into the body of the buikling, my
eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I
ascended the small staircase that conducts to it, to take from
thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The
shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it
are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this
eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral tro-
phies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs ;
where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie moulder-
ing in their " beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great
chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous
taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost
as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to produce an effect
upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the
end of human pomp and power ; here it was literally but a step
from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that
these incongruous mementos had been gathered together as a
lesson to living greatness? — to show it, even in the moment of
its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it
must soon arrive? how soon that crown which encircles its
brow must pass away ; and it must lie down in the dust and
disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the
meanest of the multitude? For, strange to tell, even the grave
is here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in
some natures, which leads them to sport with awful and hal-
lowed things ; and there are base minds, which delight to re-
venge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and grovelling
servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of P^dward
the Confessor has J3een broken open, and his remains despoiled
of their funeral ornaments ; the sceptre has been stolen from
the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the effigy of Henry
the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some
proof how false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some

138 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

are plundered ; some mutilated ; some covered with ribaldry
and insult — all more or less outraged and dishonored !

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through
the painted windows in the high vaults above me ; the lower
parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of
twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The
effigies of the kings faded into shadows ; the marble figures of
the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light ;
the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath
of the grave ; and even the distant footfall of a verger, travers-
ing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in
its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I
passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing
with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with
echoes.

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the
objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already
falling into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions,
trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though
I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What,
thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury
of humiliation ; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the empti-
ness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion? It is, indeed,
the empire of Death ; his great shadowy palace ; where he sits
in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading
dust and forgetfuluess on the monuments of princes. How idle
a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name ! Time is ever
silently turning over his pages ; we are too much engrossed b}'
the story of the present, to think of the characters and anec-
dotes that gave interest to the past ; and each age is a volume
thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day
pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection ; and will,
in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. "Our
fathers," says Sir Thomas Brown, k' find their graves in our
short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our
survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded
with doubt and controversy ; the inscription moulders from the
tablet ; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches,
pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand — and their epitaphs,
but characters written in the dust? What is the security of
the tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains
of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and
his empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum.,
t; The Egyptian mummies which Cambyses or time hath spared,

CHRISTMAS. 139

avarice now consumeth ; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh
is sold for balsams." 1

What then is to insure this pile, which now towers above
me, from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time
must come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily,
shall lie in rubbish beneath the feet ; when, instead of the sound
of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle through the
broken arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower —
when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy man-
sions of death ; and the ivy twine round the fallen column ; and
the fox-glove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in
mockery of the dead. Thus man passes away ; his name per-
ishes from record and recollection ; his history is as a tale that
is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.2

CHRISTMAS.

But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray
old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing I cannot have more of him.

HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS.

A man might then behold

At Christmas, in each hull,
Good fires to curb tho cold,

Aud meat for great and small.
The neighbors were friendly bidden,

And all had welcome true,
The poor from the gates were not chidden,

When this old cap was new. — OLD SONG.

Nothing in England exercises a more delightful spell over
my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs
and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures
my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life, when
as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to
be all that poets had painted it ; and they bring with them the
flavor of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with
equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more home-
bred, social, and jo}rous than at present. I regret to say that
they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually
worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modem
fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels of Gothic

! Sir Thoma< Brown.
- Appendix, I\(;le -4,

140 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

architecture, which we see crumbling in various parts of the
country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and partly
lost in the additions and alterations of later days. Poetry,
however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural game
and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its
themes — as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the Gothic arch
and mouldering tower, gratefully repaying their support, by
clasping together their tottering remains, and, as it were, em-
balming them in verdure.

Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens
the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone
of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with out conviviality,
and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoy-
ment. The services of the church about this season are ex-
tremely tender and inspiring : they dwell on the beautiful storey
of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accom-
panied its announcement : they gradually increase in fervor and
pathos during the season of Advent, until the}T break forth in
full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will
to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral
feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ per-
forming a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every
part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.

It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from days of
yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announcement
of the religion of peace and love, has been made the season
for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer
again those bands of kindred hearts, which the cares and pleas-
ures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to
cast loose ; of calling back the children of a family, who have
launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more
to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of
the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the
endearing mementos of childhood.

There is something in the very season of the year, that gives
a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times, we de-
rive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of
Nature. Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over
the sunny landscape, and we " live abroad and everywhere."
The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing
fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the
golden pomp of autumn ; earth with its mantle of refreshing
green, and heaven with its deep delicious blue and its cloudy
magnificence, — all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and

CHRISTMAS. 141

we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the depth of
winter, when Nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped
in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to
moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of the landscape,
the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they circum-
scribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling
abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures
of the social circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated ; our
friendly sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the
charm of each other's society, and are brought more closely
together by dependence on each other for enjoyment. Heart
calleth unto heart, and we draw our pleasures from the deep
wells of loving-kindness which lie in the quiet recesses of our
bosoms ; and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure
element of domestic felicity.

The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering
the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire.
The ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine
through the room, and lights up each countenance into a kind-
lier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality ex-
pand into a broader and more cordial smile — where is the shy
glance of love more sweetly eloquent — than by the winter fire-
side ? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through
the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement,
and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful
than that feeling of sober and sheltered security, with which
we look round upon the comfortable chamber, and the scene of
domestic hilarity?

The English, from the great prevalence of rural habits
throughout every class of society, have always been fond of
those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt the
stillness of country life ; and they were in former days particu-
larly observant of the religious and social rights of Christmas.
It is inspiring to read even the dry details which some anti-
quaries have given of the quaint humors, the burlesque pageants,
the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fellowship, with
which this festival was celebrated. It seemed to throw open
every door, and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant
and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm gen-
erous flow of joy and kindness. The old halls of castles and
manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas carol,
and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality.
Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with
green decorations of bay and holly — the cheerful fire glanced

142 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

its rays through the lattice, inviting the passengers to raise the
latch, and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, be-
guiling the long evening with legendary jokes, and oft-told
Christmas tales.

One of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the
havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday customs. It
has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs
of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into
a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic
surface. Many of the games and ceremonials of Christmas
have entirely disappeared, and, like the sherris sack of old Fal-
staff, are become matters of speculation and dispute among
commentators. They flourished in times full of spirit and lusti-
hood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigor-
ously : times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry
witli its richest materials, and the drama with its most attrac-
tive variety of characters and manners. The world has become
more worldly. There is more of dissipation and less of enjoy-
ment. Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower
stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet chan-
nels, where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domes-
tic life. Society has acquired a more enlightened and elegant
tone ; but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its
homebred feelings, its honest fireside delights. The tradition-
ary customs of golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities,
and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial
castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated.
They comported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken galleiy,
and the tapestried parlor, but are unfitted to the light showy
saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the modern villa.

Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honors,
Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in England.
It is gratifying to see that home feeling completely aroused
which holds so powerful a place in every English bosom. The
preparations making on every side for the social board that is
again to unite friends and kindred — the presents of good cheer
passing and repassing, those tokens of regard and quickeners
of kind feelings — the evergreens distributed about houses and
churches, emblems of peace and gladness — all these have the
most pleasing effect in producing fond associations, and kin-
dling benevolent sympathies. Even the sound of the waits, rude
as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the midwatches of a
winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. As I have
been awakened by them in that still and solemn hour " when

CHRISTMAS. 143

deep sleep falleth upon man," I have listened with a hushed
delight, and connecting them with the sacred and joyous occa-
sion, have almost fancied them into another celestial choir,
announcing peace and good-will to mankind. How delightfully
the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral influences,
turns every thing to melody and beauty ! The very crowing of
the cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of the coun-
try, "telling the nightwatches.to his feathery dames," was
thought by the common people to announce the approach of this
sacred festival :

" Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome — then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time."

Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits,
and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what
bosom can remain insensible? It is, indeed, the season of
regenerated feeling — the season for kindling not merely the
fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in
the heart. The scene of early love again rises green to mem-
ory beyond the sterile waste of years, and the idea of home,
fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates
the drooping spirit — as the Arabian breeze will sometimes
waft the freshness of the distant fields to the weary pilgrim of
the desert.

Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land — though for me
no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its
doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the
threshold — yet I feel the influence of the season beaming into
my soul from the happy looks of those around me. Surely
happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven ; and every
countenance bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent
enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a
supreme and ever-shining benevolence. He who can turn
churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow-
beings, and can sit down darkling and repining in his lone-
liness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of
strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the
genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a
merry Christmas.

144 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

THE STAGE-COACH.

Omne benfe

Sine poena
Tempus est ludendi

Venit hora

Absque mora
Librob deponendi.

OLD HOLIDAY SCHOOL SONG.

IN the preceding paper, I have made some general observa-
tions on the Christmas festivities of England, and am tempted
to illustrate them by some anecdotes of a Christmas passed
in the country ; in perusing which, I would most courteously
invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to
put on that genuine holiday spirit, which is tolerant of folly
and anxious only for amusement.

In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for a
long distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preced-
ing Christmas. The coach was crowded, both inside and out,
with passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally bound
to the mansions of relations or friends, to eat the Christmas
dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets
and boxes of delicacies ; and hares hung dangling their long
ears about the coachman's box, presents from distant friends
for the impending feast. I had three fine rosy-cheeked boys
for my fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and
manly spirit which I have observed in the children of this
country. They were returning home for the holidays, in
high glee, and promising * themselves a world of enjoyment.
It was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of the little
rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to perform dur-
ing their six weeks' emancipation from the abhorred thraldom
of book, birch, and pedagogue. They were full of antici-
pations of the meeting with the family and household, down to
the very cat and dog ; and of the joy they were to give their
little sisters, by the presents with which their pockets were
crammed ; but the meeting to which they seemed to look for-
ward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam, which I
found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of
more virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus.
How he could trot ! how he could run ! and then such leaps as

THE STAGE-COACH.- 145

he would take — there was not a. hedge in the whole country
that he could not clear.

They were under the particular guardianship of the coach-
man, to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they ad-
dressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the
best fellows in the world. Indeed, I could not but notice
the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the
Coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large
bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his coat.
He is always a personage full of mighty care and business ;
but he is particularly so during this season, having so many
commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange
of presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable
to my untravelled readers, to have a sketch that may serve as a
general representation of this very numerous and important class
of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an
air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent throughout the fra-
ternity ; so that, wherever an English stage-coachman may be
seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery.

He has commonly a broad full face, curiously mottled with
red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every
vessel of the skin ; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by fre-
quent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further
increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like
a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. He wears a
broad-brimmed low-crowned hat, a huge roll of colored hand-
kerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at
the bosom ; and has in summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in
his button-hole, the present, most probably, of some enamoured
country lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright color,
striped, and his small-clothes extend far below the knees, to meet
a pair of jockey boots which reach about half-way up his legs.

All this costume is maintained with much precision ; he has
a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials, and, not-
withstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is
still discernible that neatness and propriety of person, which
is almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys great conse-
quence and consideration along the road ; has frequent con-
ferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a
man of great trust and dependence ; and he seems to have a
good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass. The
moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he
throws down the reins with something of an air, and abandons
the cattle to the care of the hostler, his duty being merely to

146 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

drive from one stage to another. When off the box, his hands
are thrust into the pockets of his great-coat, and he rolls about
the inn-yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness.
Here he is generally .surrounded by an admiring throng of hos-
tlers, stable-boys, shoeblacks, and those nameless hangers-on,
that infest inns and taverns, and run errands, and do all kind
of odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the drippings of
,the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room. These all look
up to him as to an oracle ; treasure up his cant phrases ; echo
his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore ; and,
above all, endeavor to imitate his air and carriage. Every rag-
amuffin that has a coat to his back, thrusts his hands in the
pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo Coachey.

Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that
reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw cheerfulness in
every countenance throughout the journey. A Stage-Coach,
however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world
in motion as it whirls along. The horn, sounded at the en-
trance of a village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten
forth to meet friends ; some with bundles and band-boxes to
secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can hardly take
leave of the group that accompanies them. In the mean time,
the coachman has a world of small commissions to execute.
Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant ; sometimes jerks a
small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public house ; and
sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands
to some half-blushing, half-laughing housemaid, an odd-shaped
billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach rattles
through the village, every one runs to the window, and you
have glances on every side of fresh country faces, and bloom-
ing giggling girls. At the corners are assembled juntos of vil-
lage idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the
important purpose of seeing company pass : but the sagest
knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of
the coach is an event fruitful of much speculation. The smith,
with the horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls
by ; the cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers,
and suffer the iron to grow cool ; and the sooty spectre in brown
paper cap, laboring at the bellows, leans on the handle for a
moment, and permits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-
drawn sigh, while he glares through the murky smoke and sul-
phureous gleams of the smithy.

Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more
than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if

THE STAGE-COACH. 147

everybody was in good looks and good spirits. Game, poul-
try, and other luxuries of the table, were in brisk circulation in
the villages ; the grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were
thronged with customers. The housewives were stirring briskly
about, putting their dwellings in order ; and the glossy branches
of holl}', with their bright-red berries, began to appear at the
windows. The scene brought to mind an old writer's account
of Christmas preparations. " Now capons and hens, besides
turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton — must all
die — for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed
with a little. Now plums and spice, sugar, and honey, square
it among pies and broth. Now or never must music be in tune,
for the youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while
the aged sit by the fire. The country maid leaves half her
market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards
on Christmas eve. Great is the contention of Holly and Ivy,
whether master or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards
benefit the butler ; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will
sweetly lick his fingers."

I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation, by a
shout from my little travelling companions. They had been
looking out of the coach- windows for the last few miles, recog-
nizing every tree and cottage as they approached home, and
now there was a general burst of joy — " There's John ! and
there's old Carlo ! and there's Bantam ! " cried the happy little
rogues, clapping their hands.

At the end of a lane, there was an old sober-looking servant
in livery, waiting for them ; he was accompanied by a super-
annuated pointer, and by the redoubtable Bantam, a little old
rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who
stood dozing quietly by the road-side, little dreaming of the
bustling times that awaited him.

I was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fel-
lows leaped about the steady old footman, and hugged the
pointer, who wriggled his whole body for joy. But Bantam
was the great object of interest ; all wanted to mount at once,
and it was with some difficult}' that John arranged that they
should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride first.

Off they set at last ; one on the pony, with the dog bounding
and barking before him, and the others holding John's hands ;
both talking at once, and overpowering him with questions
about home, and with school anecdotes. I looked after them
with a feeling in which I do not know whether pleasure or
melancholy predominated ; for I was reminded of those days

148 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

when, like them, I had neither known care nor sorrow, and a
holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. We stopped a few
moments afterwards, to water the horses ; and on resuming our
route, a turn of the road brought us in sight of a neat country-
seat. I could just distinguish the forms of a lady and two
young girls in the portico, and I saw my little comrades, with
Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along the carriage road.
I leaned out of the coach-window, in hopes of witnessing the
happy meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight.

In the evening we reached a village where I had determined
to pass the night. As we drove into the great gateway of the
inn, I saw, on one side, the light of a rousing kitchen fire
beaming through a window. I entered, and admired, for the
hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and
broad honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an English inn. It
was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin
vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there with a
Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon were
suspended from the ceiling ; a smoke-jack made its ceaseless
clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in one corner.

A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the kit-
chen, with a cold round of beef, and other hearty viands, upon
it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting
guard. Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack
this stout repast, whilst others sat smoking and gossiping over
their ale on two high-backed oaken settles beside the fire.
Trim housemaids were hurrying backwards and forwards,
under the directions of a fresh bustling landlady; but still
seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant word, and
have a rallying laugh, with the group round the fire. The
scene completely realized Poor Robin's humble idea of the
comforts of mid-winter :

Now trees their leafy hats do bare
To reverence Winter's silver hair;
A handsome hostess, merry host,
A pot of ale now and a toast,
Tobacco and a good coal fire,
Are things this season doth require.1

I had not been long at the inn, when a post-chaise drove up
to the door. A young gentleman stepped out, and by the light
of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a countenance which I
thought I knew. I moved forward to get a nearer view, when

1 Poor Robin's Almanack, 1684.

CHRISTMAS EVE. 149

his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken ; it was Frank Brace-
bridge, a sprightly good-humored young fellow, with whom I
had once travelled on the continent. Our meeting was ex-
tremely cordial, for the countenance of an old fellow-traveller
always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes,
odd adventures, and excellent jokes. To discuss all these in a
transient interview at an inn, was impossible ; and finding that
I was not pressed for time, and was merely making a* tour of
observation, he insisted that I sho.uld give him a day or two at
his father's country-seat, to which he was going to pass the
holidays, and which lay at a few miles' distance. " It is better
than eating a solitary Christmas dinner at an inn," said he,
"and I can assure you of a hearty welcome, in something of
the old-fashioned style." His reasoning was cogent, and I
must confess the preparation I had seen for universal festivity
and social enjoyment, had made me. feel a little impatient of
my loneliness. I closed, therefore, at once, with his invitation ;
the chaise drove up to the door, and in a few moments I was
on my way to the family mansion of the Bracebridges.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Saint Francis and Saint Benedight
Blesse this house from wicked wight;
From the night-mare and the goblin,
That is bight good fellow Robin;
Keep it from all evil spirits,
Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets :

From curfew-time

To the next prime. — CARTWKIGHT.

IT was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold ; our
chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground ; the post-boy
smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses
were on a gallop. u He knows where he is going," said my
companion, laughing, " and is eager to arrive in time for some
of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. My
father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school,
and prides himself upon keeping up something of old English
hospitality. He is a tolerable specimen of what you will rarely
meet with now-a-days in its purity, — the old English country
gentleman ; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time
in town, and fashion is carried so much into the country, that

150 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the strong rich peculiarities of ancient rural life are almost
polished away. My father, however, from early years, took
honest Peacham l for his text-book, instead of Chesterfield ; he
determined in his own mind, that there was no condition more
truly honorable and enviable than that of a country gentle-
man on his paternal lands, and, therefore, passes the whole
of his time on his estate. He is a strenuous advocate for the
revival o'f the old rural games and holiday observances, and is
deeply read in the writers, ancient and modern, who have
treated on the subject. Indeed, his favorite range of reading
is among the authors who flourished at least two centuries
since ; who, he insists, wrote and thought more like true Eng-
lishmen than any of their successors. He even regrets some-
times that he had not been born a few centuries earlier, when
England was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs.
As he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather a
lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near him,
he has that most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman, an
opportunity of indulging the bent of his own humor without
molestation. Being representative of the oldest family in the
neighborhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his ten-
ants, he is much looked up to, and, in general, is known simply
by the appellation of ' The 'Squire ; ' a title which has been
accorded to the head of the family since time immemorial. I
think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old
father, to prepare you for any eccentricittes that might other-
wise appear absurd."

We had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and
at length the chaise stopped at the gate. It was in a heavy
magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top
into flourishes and flowers. The huge square columns that
supported the gate were surmounted by the family crest. Close
adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir trees ,
and almost buried in shrubbery.

The post-boy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded
through the still frosty air, and was answered by the distant
barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed garri-
soned. An old woman immediately appeared at the gate. As
the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had a full view of a lit-
tle primitive dame, dressed very much in the antique taste, with a
neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping from
under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came courtesy ing fo'rth

Peacham'B Complete Gentleman, 1622.

CHRISTMAS EVE. 151

with many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young mas-
ter. Her husband, it see'med, was up at the house, keeping
Christmas eve in the servants' hall ; they could not do without
him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the house-
hold.

My friend proposed that we should alight, and walk through
the park to the Hall, which was at no great distance, while the
chaise should follow on. Our road wound through a noble
avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon
glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless
sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight covering of
snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught
a frosty crystal ; and at a distance might be seen a thin trans-
parent vapor, stealing up from the low grounds, and threatening
gradually to shroud the landscape.

My companion looked round him with transport : — ' ' How
often," said he, " have I scampered up this avenue, on return-
ing home on school vacations ! How often have I played under
these trees when a boy ! I feel a degree of filial reverence for
them, as we look up to those who have cherished us in child-
hood. My father was always scrupulous in exacting our holi-
days, and having us around him on family festivals. He used
to direct and superintend our games with the strictness that
some parents do the studies of their children. He was very
particular that we should play the old English games according
to their original form ; and consulted old books for precedent
and authority for every ' merrie disport;' yet, I assure you,
there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of
the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was
the happiest place in the world, and I value this delicious home-
feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent could bestow."

We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs of all
sorts and sizes, " mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, and curs
of low degree," that, disturbed by the ring of the porter's bell
and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding open-mouthed
across the lawn.

« The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me! "

cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his voice, the
bark was changed into a }7elp of delight, and in a moment he
was surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the
faithful animals.

We had now come in full view of the old family mansion,

152 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold
moonshine. It was an irregular building of some magnitude,
and seemed to be of the architecture of different periods. One
wing was evidently very ancient, with heavy stone-shafted bow
windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the
foliage of which the small diamond-shaped panes of glass glit-
tered with the moon-beams. The rest of the house was in the
French taste of Charles the Second's time, having been repaired
and altered, as my friend told me, by one of his ancestors, who
returned with that monarch at the Restoration. The grounds
about the house were laid out in the old formal manner of arti-
ficial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy
stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, a leaden statue or
two, and a jet of water. The old gentleman, I was told, was
extremely careful to preserve this obsolete finery in all its ori-
ginal state. He admired this fashion in gardening ; it had an
air of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting good
old family style. The boasted imitation of nature in modern
gardening had sprung up with modern republican notions, but
did not suit a monarchical government — it smacked of the lev-
elling system. I could not help smiling at this introduction of
politics into gardening, though I expressed some apprehension
that I should find the old gentleman rather intolerant in his
creed. Frank assured me, however, that it was almost the only
instance in which he had ever heard his father meddle with pol-
itics ; and he believed he had got this notion from a member
of Parliament, who once passed a few weeks with him. The
'Squire was glad of any argument to defend his clipped yew
trees and formal terraces, which had been occasionally attacked
by modern landscape gardeners.

As we approached the house, we heard the sound of music,
and now and then a burst of laughter, from one end of the
building. This, Bracebridge said, must proceed from the ser-
vants' hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, and
even encouraged, by the 'Squire, throughout the twelve days of
Christmas, provided every thing was done conformably to an-
cient usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman
blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob-
apple, and snap-dragon ; the Yule clog, and Christmas candle,
were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white berries,
hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty house-maids.1

1 The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens, at Christmas; and the
young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry
from the bush. When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases.

CHRISTMAS EVE. 153

So intent were the servants upon their sports, that we had
to ring repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. On
our arrival being announced, the 'Squire came out to receive
us, accompanied by his two other sons ; one a young officer in
the army, home on leave of absence ; the other an Oxonian,
just from the university. The 'Squire was a fine healthy-look-
ing old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an
open florid countenance ; in which the physiognomist, with the
advantage, like myself, of a previous hint or two, might dis-
cover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence.

The family meeting was warm and affectionate ; as the even-
ing was far advanced, the 'Squire would not permit us to
change our travelling dresses, but ushered us at once to the
company, which was assembled in a large old-fashioned hall.
It was composed of different branches of a numerous family
connection, where there were the usual proportion of old
uncles and aunts, comfortable married dames, superannuated
spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and
bright-eyed boarding-school hoydens. They were variously
occupied ; some at a round game of cards ; others conversing
round the fireplace ; at one end of the hall was a group of the
young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender
and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game ; and a pro-
fusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls
about the floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings,
who, having frolicked through a happy day, had been carried
off to slumber through a peaceful night.

While the mutual greetings were going on between young
Bracebridge and his relatives, I had time to scan the apart-
ment. I have called it a hall, for so it had certainly been in
old times, and the 'Squire had evidently endeavored to restore
it to something of its primitive state. Over the heavy project-
ing fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in armor,
standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung a
helmet, buckler, and lance. At one end an enormous pair of
antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches serving as hooks
on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs ; and in the corners
of the apartment were fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, and other
sporting implements. The furniture was of the cumbrous
workmanship of former days, though some articles of modern
convenience had been added, and the oaken floor had been car-
peted ; so that the whole presented an odd mixture of parlor
and hall.

The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming

154 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

fire-place, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which
was an enormous log, glowing and blazing, and sending forth
a vast volume of light and heat ; this I understood was the yule
clog, which the 'Squire was particular in having brought in and
illumined on a Christmas eve, according to ancient custom.1

It was really delightful to see the old 'Squire, seated in his
hereditary elbow-chair, by the hospitable fireside of his ances-
tors, and looking around him like the sun of a system, beaming
warmth and gladness to every heart. Even the very dog that
lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his position and
yawned, would look fondly up in his master's face, wag his
tail against the floor, and stretch himself again to sleep, con-
fident of kindness and protection. There is an emanation from
the heart in genuine hospitality, which cannot be described,
but is immediately felt, and puts the stranger at once at his
ease. I had not been seated many minutes by the comfortable
hearth of the worthy old cavalier, before I found myself as
much at home as if I had been one of the family.

Supper was announced shortly after our arrival. It was
served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which
shone with wax, and around which were several family por-
traits decorated with holly and ivy. Beside the accustomed
lights, two great wax tapers, called Christmas candles, wreathed
with greens, were placed on a highly polished beaufet among
the family plate. The table was abundantly spread with sub-
stantial fare ; but the 'Squire made his supper of frumenty, a
dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk with rich spices, being
a standing dish in old times for Christmas eve. I was happy
to find my old friend, minced pie, in the retinue of the feast ;
and finding him to be perfectly orthodox, and that I need not
be ashamed of my predilection, I greeted him with all the

1 The yule clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, brought into the
house with great ceremony, on Christmas eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the
brand of last year's clog. While it lasted, there was great drinking, singing, and telling
of tales. Sometimes it was accompanied by Christmas candles; but in the cottages, the
only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire. The yule clog was to burn all
night : if it went out, it was considered a sign of ill luck.

Herrick mentions it in one of his songs :

Come bring with a noise,
My merrie, merrte boys,
The Christmas Log to the firing;

While my good dame she

Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your hearts desiring.

The yule clog is still burnt in many farm-houses and kitchens in England, partic-
ularly in the north; and there are several superstitious connected with it among the
peasantry. If a squinting person come to the house while it is burning, or a person
barefooted, it is considered an ill omen. The brand remaining from the yule clog is
carefully put away to light the next year's Christmas fire.

CHRISTMAS EVE, 155

warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and very genteel
acquaintance.

The mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the
humors of an eccentric personage, whom Mr. Braccbridg al-
ways addressed with the quaint appellation of Master Simon.
He was a tight brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old
bachelor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot, his
face slightly pitted with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual
bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye
of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking
waggery of expression that was irresistable. He was evidently
the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly jokes and innu-
endoes with the ladies, and making infinite merriment by harp-
ing upon old themes ; which, unfortunately, my ignorance of
the family chronicles did not permit me to enjoy. It seemed
to be his great delight, during supper, to keep a young girl next
to him in a continual agony of stifled laughter, in spite of her
awe of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat opposite.
Indeed, he was the idol of the younger part of the company,
who laughed at every thing he said or did, and at every turn of
his countenance. I could not wonder at it ; for he must have
been a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes. He could
imitate Punch and Judy ; make an old woman of his hand,
with the assistance of a burnt cork and pocket handkerchief ;
and cut an orange into such a ludicrous caricature, that the
young folks were ready to die with laughing.

I was let briefly into his history by Frank Bracebridge. He
was an old bachelor, of a small independent income, which, by
careful management, was sufficient for all his wants. He re-
volved through the family system like a vagrant comet in its
orbit ; sometimes visiting one branch, and sometimes another
quite remote, as is often the case with gentlemen of extensive
connections and small fortunes in England. He had a chirping,
buoyant disposition, always enjoying the present moment ; and
his frequent change of scene and company prevented his ac-
quiring those rusty, unaccommodating habits, with which old
bachelors are so uncharitably charged. He was a complete
family chronicle, being versed in the genealogy, history, and
intermarriages of the whole house of Bracebridge, which made
him a great favorite with the old folks ; he was a beau of all
the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters, among whom he
was habitually considered rather a young fellow, and he was
master of the revels among the children ; so that there was not
u more popular being in the sphere in which he moved, than

156 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of late years, he had resided almost
entirely with the 'Squire, to whom he had become a factotum,
and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his hu-
mor in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old
song to suit every occasion. We had presently a specimen of
his last-mentioned talent ; for no sooner was supper removed,
and spiced wines and other beverages peculiar to the season
introduced, than Master Simon was called on for a good old
Christmas song. He bethought himself for a moment, and
then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice that was by no
means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto,
like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old
ditty :

Now Christmas is come,

Let us beat up the drum,
And call all our neighbors together;

And when they appear,

Let us make them such cheer,
As will keep out the wind and the weather, etc.

The supper had disposed every one to gayety, and an old
harper was summoned from the servants' hall, where he had
been strumming all the evening, and to all appearance comfort-
ing himself with some of the 'Squire's home-brewed. He was
a kind of hanger-on, I was told, of the establishment, and
though ostensibly a resident of the village, was oftener to be
found in the 'Squire's kitchen than his own home ; the old gen-
tleman being fond of the sound of " Harp in hall."

The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one ;
some of the older folks joined in it, and the 'Squire himself
figured down several couple with a partner with whom he
affirmed he had danced at every Christmas for nearly half a
century. Master Simon, who seemed to be a kind of connect-
ing link between the old times and the new, and to be withal a
little antiquated in the taste of his accomplishments, evidently
piqued himself on his dancing, and was endeavoring to gain
credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and other graces of the
ancient school ; but he had unluckily assorted himself with a
little romping girl from boarding-school, who, by Tier wild
vivacity, kept him continually on the stretch, and defeated all
his sober attempts at elegance : — such are the ill-assorted
matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately prone !

The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his
maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little
knaveries with impunity ; he was full of practical jokes, and his

CHRISTMAS EVE. 157

delight was to tease his aunts and cousins ; yet, like all madcap
youngsters, he was a universal favorite among the women. The
most interesting couple in the dance was the young officer, and
a ward of the 'Squire's, a beautiful blushing girl of seventeen.
From several shy glances which I had noticed in the course of
the evening, I suspected there was a little kindness growing up
between them ; and, indeed, the young soldier was just the hero
to captivate a romantic girl. He was tall, slender, and hand-
some ; and, like most young British officers of late years, had
picked up various small accomplishments on the continent — he
could talk French and Italian — draw landscapes — sing very
tolerably — dance divinely ; but, above all, he had been wounded
at Waterloo : — what girl of seventeen, well read in poetry and
romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfection?
The moment the dance was over, he caught up a guitar, and
Jolling against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude which I
am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the little French
air of the Troubadour. The 'Squire, however, exclaimed
against having any thing on Christmas eve but good old English ;
upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment,
as if in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, and
with a charming air of gallantry, gave Herrick's " Night-Piece
to Julia:"

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee,

And the elves also,

Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

No Will-o'-the-Wisp mislightthee;
Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee ;

But on, on thy way,

Not making a stay,
Since ghost there is none to affright thee.

Then let not the dark thee cumber;
What though the moon does slumber,

The stars of the night

Will lend thee their light,
Like tapers clear without number.

Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me :

And when I shall meet

Thy silvery feet,
My soul I'll pour into thee.

The song might or might not have been intended in compli-
ment to the fair Julia, for so I found his partner was called ;

158 THE SKETCH-HOOK.

she, however, was certainly unconscious of any such applica-
tion ; for she. nevef looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast
upon the floor ; her face was suffused, it is true, with a beauti-
ful blush, and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all
that was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance : indeed,
so great was her indifference, that she amused herself with
plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house flowers, and
by the time the song was concluded the nosegay lay in ruins en
the floor.

The party now broke up for the night, with the kind hearted
old custom of shaking hands. As I passed through the hall on
my way to my chamber, the dying embers of the yule clog still
sent forth a dusky glow ; and had it not been the season when
" no spirit dares stir abroad," I should have been half tempted
to steal from my room at midnight, and peep whether the fairies
might not be at their revels about the hearth.

My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponder-
ous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days
of the giants. The room was panelled, with cornices of heavy
carved work, in which flowers and grotesque faces were
strangely intermingled, and a row of black-looking portraits
stared mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was of rich,
though faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche
opposite a bow-window. I had scarcely got into bed when a
strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the
window : I listened, and found it proceeded from a baud, which
I concluded to be the waits from some neighboring village.
They went round the house, playing under the windows. I
drew aside the curtains, to hear them more distinctly. The
moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, par-
tially lighting up the antiquated apartment. The sounds, as
they receded, became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord
with quiet and moonlight. I listened and listened — they be-
came more and more tender and remote, and, as they gradually
died away, my head sunk upon the pillow, and I fell asleep.

CHRISTMAS DAT. 159

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Dark and dull night flie hence away,
And give the honour to this day
That sees December turn'd to May.

Why does the chilling winter's morne

Smile like a field beset with corn?

Or smell like to a meade new-shorne,

Thus on the sudden? — come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be. — HERRICK.

WHEN I woke the next morning, it seemed as if all the events
of the preceding evening had been a dream, and nothing but
the identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of their
reality. While I lay musing on my pillow, I heard the sound
of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering
consultation. Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth
an old Christmas carol, the burden of which was —

Rejoice, our Saviour he was born
On Christmas day in the morning.

I rose softly, slipt on my clothes, opened the door suddenly,
and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a
painter could imagine. It consisted of a boy and two girls, the
eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were
going the rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber door,
but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashful-
ness. They remained for a moment playing on their lips with
their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance from
under their eyebrows, until, 'as if by one impulse, they scam-
pered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, I heard
them laughing in triumph at their escape.

Every thing conspired to produce kind and happy feelings ,
in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. The window
of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have
been a beautiful landscape. There was a sloping lawn, a fine
stream winding at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond,
with noble clumps of trees, and herds of deer. At a distance
was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage chimneys
hanging over it ; and a church, with its dark spire in strong
relief against the clear cold sk}7. The house was surrounded
with evergreens, according to the English custom, which would

160 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

have given almost an appearance of summer ; but the morning
was extremely frosty ; the light vapor of the preceding evening
had been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the trees and
every blade of grass with its fine crystallizations. The rays of
a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect among the glittering
foliage. A robin perched upon the top of a mountain ash, that
hung its clusters of red berries just before my window, was
basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few querulous
notes ; and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train,
and strutting with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee
on the terrace-walk below.

I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant appeared to
invite me to family prayers. He showed me the way to a small
chapel in the old wing of the house, where I found the princi-
pal part of the family already assembled in a kind of galleiy,
furnished with cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books ; the
servants were seated on benches below. The old gentleman
read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, and Master
Simon acted as clerk and made the responses ; and I must do
him the justice to say, that he acquitted himself with great
gravity and decorum.

The service was followed by a Christmas carol, which Mr.
Bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his favor-
ite author Herrick; and it had been adapted to an old church
melody by Master Simon. As there were several good voices
among the household, the effect was extremely pleasing ; but I was
particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, and sudden
sally of grateful feeling, with which the worthy 'Squire delivered
one stanza ; his eye glistening, and his voice rambling out of
all the bounds of time and tune :

" Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth

With guiltlesse mirth,
And givest me Wassaile bowles to drink
Spiced to the brink :

Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand

That soiles my land :
And giv'st me for my bushell sowne,

Twice ten for one."

I afterwards understood that early morning service was read
on every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either by
Mr. Bracebridge or by some member of the family. It was once
almost universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gen-

CHRISTMAS DAT. 161

try of England, and it is much to be regretted that the custom
is falling into neglect ; for the dullest observer must be sensible
of the order and serenity prevalent in those households, where
the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the
morning gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the
day, and attunes every spirit to harmony.

Our breakfast consisted of what the 'Squire denominated true
old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamentations
over modern breakfasts of tea and toast, which he censured as
among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and
the decline of old English heartiness : and though he admitted
them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was
a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale, on the sideboard.

After breakfast, I walked about the grounds with Frank
Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, as he was called
by everybody but the 'Squire. We were escorted by a number
of gentlemen-like dogs, that seemed loungers about the estab-
lishment ; from the frisking spaniel to the steady old stag-hound
— the last of which was of a race that had been in the family
time out of mind — they were all obedient to a dog- whistle
which hung to Master Simon's button-hole, and in the midst of
their gambols would glance an eye occasionally upon a small
switch he carried in his hand.

The old mansion had a still more venerable look in the yellow
sunshine than by pale moonlight ; and I could not but feel the
force of the 'Squire's idea, that the formal terraces, heavily
moulded balustrades, and clipped yew trees, carried with them
an air of proud aristocracy.

There appeared to be an unusual number of peacocks about
the place, and I was making some remarks upon what I termed
a flock of them that were basking under a sunny wall, when I
was gently corrected in my phraseology by Master Simon, who
told me that according to the most ancient and approved trea-
tise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. "In the
same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, " we say
a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer,
of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks."
He went on to inform me that, according to Sir Anthony Fitz-
herbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird "both understanding
and glory ; for, being praised, he will presently set up his tail,
chiefly against the sun, to the intent you may the better behold
the beauty thereof. But at the fall of the leaf, when his tail
falleth, he will mourn and hide himself in corners, till his tail come
again as it was."

162 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on
so whimsical a subject ; but I found that the peacocks were
birds of some consequence at the Hall ; for Frank Bracebridge
informed me that they were great favorites with his father, who
was extremely careful to keep up the breed, partly because they
belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at the stately
banquets of the olden time ; and partly because they had a
pomp and magnificence about them highly becoming an old
family mansion. Nothing, he was accustomed to say, had an
air of greater state and dignity, than a peacock perched upon
an antique stone balustrade.

Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment
at the parish church with the village choristers, who were to
perform some music of his selection. There was something
extremely agreeable in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the
little man ; and I confess I had been somewhat surprised at his
apt quotations from authors who certainly were not in the range
of every-day reading. I mentioned this last circumstance to
Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile that Master
Simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half-a-
dozen old authors, which the 'Squire had put into his hands,
and which he read over and over, whenever he had a studious
fit ; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long winter even-
ing. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry ; Mark-
ham's Country Contentments ; the Tretyse of Hunting, by Sir
Thomas Cockayne, Knight ; Izaak Walton's Angler, and two
or three more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his stand-
ard authorities ; and, like all men who know but a few books,
he looked up to them with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them
on all occasions. As to his songs, they were chiefly picked out
of old books in the 'Squire's library, and adapted to tunes that
were popular among the choice spirits of the last century. His
practical application of scraps of literature, however, had caused
him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all
the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighbor-
hood.

While we were talking, we heard the distant toll of the village
bell, and I was told that the 'Squire was a little particular in
having his household at church on a Christmas morning ; con-
sidering it a day of pouring out of thanks and rejoicing ; for,
as old Tusser observed, —

" At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal,
And feast thy poor neighbors, the great with the small.'

CHRISTMAS DAY, 163

" If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Brace-
bridge, " I can promise you a specimen of my cousin Simon's
musical achievements. As the church is destitute of an organ,
he has formed a band from the village amateurs, and estab-
lished a musical club for their improvement ; he has also sorted
a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to
the directions of Jervaise Markham, in his Country Content-
ments ; for the bass he has sought out all the ' deep, solemn
mouths,' and for the tenor the ' loud ringing mouths,' am on n;
the country bumpkins ; and for ' sweet mouths,' he has culled
with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in the neighbor-
hood ; though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult to
keep in tune ; your pretty female singer being exceedingly
wayward and capricious, and very liable to accident."

As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and
clear, the most of the family walked to the church, which was a
very old building of gray stone, and stood near a village, about
half a mile from the park gate. Adjoining it was a low snug
parsonage, which seemed coeval with the church. The front
of it was perfectly matted with a yew tree, that had been trained
against its walls, through the dense foliage of which, apertures
had been formed to admit light into the small antique lattices.
As we passed this sheltered nest, the parson issued forth and
preceded us.

I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, such
as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich pa-
tron's table, but I was disappointed. The parson was a little,
meagre, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too
wide, and stood off from each ear ; so that his head seemed to
have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. He
wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that would
have held the church Bible and prayer-book : and his small legs
seemed still smaller, from being planted in large shoes, deco-
rated with enormous buckles.

I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the parson had
been a chum of his father's at Oxford, and had received this
living shortly after the latter had come to his estate. He was
a complete black-letter hunter, and would scarcely read a work
printed in the Roman character. The editions of Caxton and
Wynkin de Worde were his delight ; and he was indefatigable
in his researches after such old English writers as have fallen
into oblivion from their worthlessness. In deference, perhaps,
to the notions of Mr. Bracebridge, he had made diligent inves-
tigations into the festive rites and holiday customs of former

164 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

times ; and had been as zealous in the inquiry, as if he had been
a boon companion ; but it .was merely with that plodding spirit
with which men of adust temperament follow up any track of
study, merely because it is denominated learning ; indifferent
to its intrinsic nature, whether it be the illustration of the wis-
dom, or of the ribaldry and obscenity of antiquity. He had
pored over these old volumes so intensely, that they seemed to
have been reflected in his countenance ; which, if the face be
indeed an index of the mind, might be compared to a title-page
of black-letter.

On reaching the church-porch, we found the parson rebuking
the gray-headed sexton for having used mistletoe among the
greens with which the church was decorated. It was, he ob-
served, an unholy plant, profaned by having been used by the
Druids in their mystic ceremonies ; and though it might be in-
nocently employed in the festive ornamenting of halls and
kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of the Church
as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred purposes. So tena-
cious was he on this point, that the poor sexton was obliged to
strip down a great part of the humble trophies of his taste,
before the parson would consent to«nter upon the service of the
day.

The interior of the church was venerable, but simple ; on the
walls were several mural monuments of the Bracebridges, and
just beside the altar, was a tomb of ancient workmanship, on
which lay the effigy of a warrior in armor, with his legs
crossed, a sign of his having been a crusader. I was told it
was one of the family who had signalized himself in the Holy
Land, and the same whose picture hung over the fireplace in
the hall.

During service, Master Simon stood up in the pew, and re-
peated the responses very audibly ; evincing that kind of cere-
monious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the
old school, and a man of old family connections. I observed,
too, that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with
something of a flourish, possibly to show off an enormous seal-
ring which enriched one of his fingers, and which had the look
of a family relic. But he was evidently most solicitous about
the musical part of the service, keeping his eye fixed intently
on the choir, and beating time with much gesticulation and
emphasis.

The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most
whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the other, among
which I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale

CHRISTMAS DAY. 165

fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the
clarionet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point : and
there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and laboring
at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald
head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two or three pretty
faces among the female singers, to which the keen air of a
frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint : but the gentlemen
choristers had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles,
more for tone than looks ; and as several had to sing from the
same book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies, not
unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see on country
tombstones.

The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well,
the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumen-
tal, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost
time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and
clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter, to be in at the
death. But the great trial was an anthem that had been pre-.
pared and arranged by Master Simon, and on which he had
founded great expectation. Unluckily there was a blunder at
the very outset — the musicians became flurried ; Master Simon
was in a fever ; every thing went on lamely and irregularly,
until they came to a chorus beginning, " Now let us sing with
one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company :
all became discord and confusion ; each shifted for himself, and
got to the end as well, or, rather, as soon as he could ; except-
ing one old chorister, in a pair of horn spectacles, bestriding
and pinching a long sonorous nose ; who, happening to stand a
little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on
a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and
winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration.

The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and
ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of observing it, not
merely as a day of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing ; supporting
the correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the
church, and enforcing them by the authorities of Theophilus of
Cesarea, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and a
cloud more of Saints and Fathers, from whom he made copious
quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive the necessity of
such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point which no one
present seemed inclined to dispute ; but I soon found that the
good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to contend with ;
having, in the course of his researches on the subject of Christ-
mas, got completely embroiled in the sectarian controversies of

166 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the Revolution, when the Puritans made such a fierce assault
upon the ceremonies of the church and poor old Christmas was
driven out of the land by proclamation of Parliament.1 The
worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but little
of the present.

Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his
antiquated little study, the pages of old times were to him as
the gazettes of the day ; while the era of the Revolution was
mere modern history. He forgot that nearly two centuries had
elapsed since the fiery persecution of poor mince-pie through-
out the laud; when plum porridge was denounced as "mere
popery," and roast beef as anti-Christian; and that Christmas
had been brought in again triumphantly with the merry court
of King Charles at the Restoration. He kindled into warmth
with the ardor of his contest, and the host of imaginary foes
with whom he had to combat ; he had a stubborn conflict with
old Prynne and two or three other forgotten champions of the
Round Heads, on the subject of Christmas festivity ; and con-
cluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and affecting
manner, to stand to the traditional customs of their fathers,
and feast and make merry on this joyful anniversary of the
church.

I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with
more immediate effects ; for on leaving the church, the congre-
gation seemed one and all possessed with the gayety of spirit
so earnestly enjoined by their pastor. The elder folks gathered
in knots in the churchyard, greeting and shaking hands ; and
the children ran about crying, Ule ! Ule ! and repeating some
uncouth rhymes,2 which the parson, who had joined us, in-
formed me had been handed down from days of yore. The
villagers doffed their hats to the 'Squire as he passed, giving
him the good wishes of the season with every appearance of
heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to the hall, to take
something to keep out the cold of the weather ; and I heard
blessings uttered by several of the poor, which convinced me

1 From the "Flying Eagle," a small Gazette, published December 24th, 1652 —
" The House spent much time this day about the business of the Navy, for settling
the affairs at sea, and before they rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance
against Christmas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16. 1 Cor. xv. 14,
17; and in honour of the Lord's Day, grounded upon these Scriptures, John xx. 1.
Rev. i. 10. Psalms, cxviii. 24. Lev. xxiii. 7, 11. Mark, xv. 8. Psalms, Ixxxiv. 10; in
which Christmas is called Anti Christ's masse, and those Masse-mongers and Papists
who observe it, etc. In consequence of which Parliament spent some time in consul-
tation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed orders to that effect, and re-
solved to sit on the following day which was commonly called Christmas day."
2 "Ule! Ule!

Three puddings in a pule;
Craek nuts and cry ule! "

CHRISTMAS DAY. 167

that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier
had not forgotten the true Christmas virtue of charity.

On our way homeward, his heart seemed overflowing with
generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising-
ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds
of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears ; the 'Squire
paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of
inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself
sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frosti-
ness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had ac-
quired sufficient power to melt away the thin covering of snow
from every southern declivity, and to bring out the living green
which adorns an English landscape even in mid-winter. Large
tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the dazzling whiteness
of the shaded slopes and hollows. Every sheltered bank, on
which the broad rays rested, yielded its silver rill of cold and
limpid water, glittering through the dripping grass ; and sent
up slight exhalations to contribute to the thin haze that hung
just above the surface of the earth. There was something truly
cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty
thraldom of winter ; it was, as the 'Squire observed, an emblem
of Christmas hospitality, breaking through the chills of cere-
mony and selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow. He
pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking
from the chimneys of the comfortable farm-houses, and low
thatched cottages. "I love," said he, "to see this day well
kept by rich and poor ; it is a great thing to have one day in
the year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever
you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to
you ; and I am almost disposed to join with poor Robin, in his
malediction on every churlish enemy to this honest festival :

" Those who at Christmas do repine,

And would fain hence despatch him,
May they with old Duke Humphry dine,
Or else may 'Squire Ketch catch him."

The 'Squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the
games and amusements which were once prevalent at this season
among the lower orders, and countenanced by the higher ; when
the old halls of the castles and manor-houses were thrown open
at daylight ; when the tables were covered with brawn, and beef,
and humming ale ; when the harp and the carol resounded all
day long, and when rich and poor were alike welcome to enter

168 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

and make merry.1 " Our old games and local customs," said
he, "had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home,
and the promotion of them by the gentry made him fond of his
lord. They made the times merrier, and kinder, and better,
and I can truly say with one of our old poets,

' I like them well — the curious preciseness
And all-pretended gravity of those
That seek to banish hence these harmless sports,
Have thcust away much ancient honesty.'

"The nation," continued he, "is altered; we have almost
lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They have broken
asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their inter-
ests are separate. They have become too knowing, and begin
to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of
reform. I think one mode to keep them in good-humor in these
hard times, would be for the nobility and gentry to pass more
time on their estates, mingle more among the country people,
and set the merry old English games going again."

Such was the good 'Squire's project for mitigating public dis-
content : and, indeed, he had once attempted to put his doctrine
in practice, and a few years before he had kept open house
during the holidays in the old st}Tle. The country people, how-
ever, did not understand how to play their parts in the scene of
hospitality ; many uncouth circumstances occurred ; the manor
was overrun by all the vagrants of the country, and more beg-
gars drawn into the neighborhood in one week than the parish
officers could get rid of in a year. Since then he had contented
himself with inviting the decent part of the neighboring peas-
antry to call at the Hall on Christmas day, and with distributing
beef, and bread, and ale, among the poor, that they might make
merry in their own dwellings.

We had not been long home, when the sound of music was
heard from a distance. A band of country lads, without coats,
their shirt sleeves fancifully tied with ribbons, their hats deco-
rated with greens, and clubs in their hands, were seen advan-
cing up the avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and
peasantry. They stopped before the hall door, where the music

1 "An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, i.e. on Christmas day in
the morning, had all his tenants and neighbors enter his hall by day break. The strong
beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, and
nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by
day-break, or else two young men must take the maiden (i.e. the cook) by the arms and
run her round the market place till she is shamed of her laziness." — Round about our
Sea-Coal Fire.

CHRISTMAS DAY. 169

struck up a peculiar air, and the lads performed a curious and
intricate dance, advancing, retreating, and striking their clubs
together, keeping exact time to the music ; while one, whimsi-
calry crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down
his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, and
rattling a Christmas-box with many antic gesticulations.

The 'Squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest
and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he
traced to the times when the Romans held possession of the
island ; plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant of the
sword-dance of the ancients. u It was now," he said, " nearly
extinct, but he had accidentally met with traces of it in the
neighborhood, and had encouraged its revival ; though, to tell
the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by rough cudgel-play,
and broken heads, in the evening."

After the dance was concluded, the whole party was enter-
tained with brawn and beef, and stout home-brewed. The
'Squire himself mingled among the rustics, and was received
with awkward demonstrations of deference and regard. It is
true, I perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as they
were raising their tankards to their mouths, when the 'Squire's
back was turned, making something of a grimace, and giving
each other the wink ; but the moment they caught my eye they
pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly demure. With Master
Simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. His varied
occupations and amusements had made him well known through-
out the neighborhood. He was a visitor at every farm-house
and cottage ; gossiped with the farmers and their wives ; romped
with their daughters ; and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor
the humble-bee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the
country round.

The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good
cheer and affability. There is something genuine and affection-
ate in the gayety of the lower orders, when it is excited by the
bounty and familiarity of those above them ; the warm glow of
gratitude enters into their mirth, and a kind word or a small
pleasantry frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of
the dependant more than oil and wine. When the 'Squire had
retired, the merriment increased, and there was much joking
and laughter, particularly between Master Simon and a hale,
ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer, who appeared to be the wit
of the village ; for I observed all his companions to wait with
open mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous laugh
before they could well understand them.

170 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

The whole house indeed seemed abandoned to merriment:
as I passed to my room to dress for dinner, I heard the sound
of music in a small court, and looking through a window that
commanded it, I perceived a baud of wandering musicians, with
pandean pipes and tambourine ; a pretty coquettish housemaid
was dancing a jig with a smart country lad, while several of
the other servants were looking on. In the midst of her sport,
the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the window, and color-
ing up, ran off with an air of roguish affected confusion.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER.

Lo, now is come our joyful'st feast!

Let every man be jolly,
Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest,

And every post with holly.
Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke,

And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with bak't meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if, for cold, it hap to die,
Wee Me bury 't in a Christmas pye,
And evermore be merry. — WITHERS' Juvenilia.

I HAD finished my toilet, and was loitering with Frank Brace-
bridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwacking sound,
which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the
dinner. The 'Squire kept up old customs in kitchen as well as
hall ; and the rolling-pin struck upon the dresser by the cook,
summoned the servants to carry in the meats.

Just in this nick the cook knock'd thrice,
And all the waiters in a trice

His summons did obey;
Each serving man, with dish in hand,
Marched boldly up, like our train band,

Presented, and away.1

The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the 'Squire
always held his Christmas banquet. A blazing crackling fire
of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment,
and the flame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-

1 Sir-John Suckling.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 171

mouthed chimney. The great picture of the crusader and his
white horse had been profusely decorated with greens for the
occasion ; and holly and ivy had likewise" been wreathed round
the helmet and weapons on the opposite wall, which I under-
stood were the arms of the same warrior. I must own, by-the-
by, I had strong doubts about the authenticity of the painting
and armor as having belonged to the crusader, they certainly
having the stamp of more recent days ; but I was told that the
painting had been so considered time out of mind ; and that,
as to the armor, it had been found in a lumber-room, and ele-
vated to its present situation by the 'Squire, who at once deter-
mined it to be the armor of the family hero ; and as he was
absolute authority on all such subjects in his own household,
the matter had passed into current acceptation. A sideboard
was set out just under this chivalric trophy, on which was a
displa}T of plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with
Belshazzar's parade of the vessels of the temple; "flagons,
cans, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers ; " the gorgeous
utensils of good companionship that had gradually accumulated
through many generations of jovial housekeepers. Before these
stood the two yule candles, beaming like two stars of the first
magnitude ; other lights were distributed in branches, and the
whole array glittered like a firmament of silver.

We were ushered into this banqueting scene with the sound
of minstrelsy ; the old harper being seated on a -stool beside
the fireplace, and twanging his instrument with a vast deal
more power than melody. Never did Christmas board display
a more goodly and gracious assemblage of countenances ; those
who were not handsome, were, at least, happy ; and happiness
is a rare improver of your hard-favored visage. I always con-
sider an old English family as well worth studying as a collec-
tion of Holbein's portraits, or Albert Durer's prints. There
is much antiquarian - lore to be acquired ; much knowledge of
the physiognomies of former times. Perhaps it may be from
having continually before their eyes those rows of old family
portraits, with which the mansions of this country are stocked ;
certain it is, that the quaint features of antiquity are often
most faithfully perpetuated in these ancient lines ; and I have
traced an old family nose through a whole picture-gallery,
legitimately handed down from generation to generation, almost
from the time of the Conquest. Something of the kind was to
be observed in the worthy company around me. Many of their
faces had evidently originated in a Gothic age, and been merely
copied by succeeding generations ; and there was one little girlj

172 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

in particular, of staid demeanor, with a high Roman nose, and
an antique vinegar aspect, who was a great favorite of the
'Squire's, being, as he said, a Bracebridge all over, and the very
counterpart of one of his ancestors who figured in the court
of Henrx VIII.

The parson said grace, which was not a short familiar one,
such as is commonly addressed to the Deity in these unceremo-
nious days ; but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the ancient
school. There was now a pause, as if something was expected ;
when suddenly the butler entered the hall with some degree of
bustle ; he was attended by a servant on each side with a large
wax-light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an enormous
pig's head, decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth,
which was placed with great formality at the head of the table.
The moment this pageant made its appearance, the harper
struck up a flourish; at the conclusion of which the young
Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the 'Squire, gave, with an
air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, the first verse of
which was as follows :

Caput apri defero

Reddens laudes Domino.
The boar's head in hand bring I,
With garlands gay and rosemary.
I pray you all synge merrily

Qui estis in couvivio.

Though prepared to witness many of these little eccentrici-
ties, from being apprised of the peculiar hobby of mine host ;
yet, I confess, the parade with which so odd a dish was intro-
duced somewhat perplexed me, until I gathered from the con-
versation of the 'Squire and the parson, that it was meant to
represent the bringing in of the boar's head — a dish formerly
served up with much ceremony, and the sound of minstrels}1
and song, at great tables on Christmas day. "I like the old
custom," said the 'Squire, " not merel}' because it is stately
and pleasing in itself, but because it was observed at the col-
lege at Oxford, at which I was educated. When I hear the
old song chanted, it brings to mind the time when I was young
and gamesome — and the noble old college hall — and my fel-
low-students loitering about in their black gowns ; many of
whom, poor lads, are now in their graves ! "

The parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such
associations, and who was always more taken up with the text
than the sentiment, objected to the Oxonian's version of the

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 173

carol ; which he affirmed was different from that sung at col-
lege. He went on, with the dry perseverance of a commenta-
tor, to give the college reading, accompanied by sundry annota-
tions ; addressing himself at first to the company at large ; but
finding their attention gradually diverted to' other talk, and
other objects, he lowered his tone as his number of auditors
diminished, until he concluded his remarks in an under voice,
to a fat-headed old gentleman next him, who was silently en-
gaged in the discussion of a huge plate-full of turkey.1

The table was literally 16aded with good cheer, and presented
an epitome of country abundance, in this season of overflowing
larders. A distinguished post was. allotted to "ancient sir-
loin," as mine host termed it ; being, as he added. " the stand-
ard of old English hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence,
and full of expectation." There were several dishes quaintly
decorated, and which had evidently something traditional in
their embellishments ; but about which, as I did not like to
appear over-curious, I asked no questions.

I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently deco-
rated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that
bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table.
This, the 'Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a
pheasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most
authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the
peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to
have one killed.2

1 The old ceremony of serving up the boar's head on Christmas day, is still observed
in the hall of Queen's College, Oxford. I was favored by the parson with a copy of the
carol as now sung, and as it may be acceptable to such of my readers as are curious in
these grave and learned matters, I give it entire :

The boar's head in hand bear I,
Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary;
And I pray you, my masters, be merry,
Quot estis in convivio.

Caput apri defero,

Reddens laudes Domino.

The boar's head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all this land,
Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland
Let us servire cantico.
Caput apri defero, etc.

Our steward hath provided this
In honour of the King of Bliss,
Which on this day to be served is
In Reginensi Atrio.
Caput apri defero,
etc., etc., etc

2 The peacock was anciently in great demand for stately entertainments. Sometimes
it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its

174 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may
not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to
which I am a little given, were I to mention the other make-
shifts of this worthy old humorist, by which he was endeavor-
ing to follow up, though at humble distance, the quaint cus-
toms of antiquity. I was pleased, however, to see the respect
shown to his whims by his children and relatives ; who, in-
deed, entered readily into the full spirit of them, and seemed
all well versed in their parts ; having doubtless been present at
many a rehearsal. I was amused, too, at the air of profound
gravity with which, the butler and other servants executed the
duties assigned them, however eccentric. They had an old-
fashioned look ; having, for the most part, been brought up in
the household, and grown into keeping with the antiquated man-
sion, and the humors of its lord ; and most probably looked
upon all his whimsical regulations as the established laws of
honorable housekeeping.

When the cloth was removed, the butler brought in a huge
silver vessel, of rare and curious workmanship, which he
placed before the 'Squire. Its appearance was hailed with
acclamation ; being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in Christ-
mas festivity. The contents had been prepared by the 'Squire
himself ; for it was a beverage, in the skilful mixture of which
he particularly prided himself : alleging that it was too ab-
struse and complex for the comprehension of an ordinary ser-
vant. It was a potation, indeed, that might well make the
heart of a toper leap within him ; being composed of the rich-
est and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted
apples bobbing about the surface.1

plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end th'e tail was displayed. Such pies
were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when Knights-errant pledged them-
selves to undertake any perilous enterprise, whence came the ancient oath, used by Jus-
tice Shallow, " by cock and pie."

The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast, and Massinger, in
his City Madam, gives some idea of the extravagance with which this, as well as other
dishes, was prepared for the gorgeous revels of the olden times :
Men may talk of Country Christmasses.

Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues :
Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; the carcases of three fat wethers bruised

for gravy to make sauce for a single peacock !

1 The Wassail Bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of wine; with nut-
meg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in this way the nut-brown beverage is still
prepared in some old families, and round the hearths of substantial farmers at
Christmas. It is also called Lamb's Wool, and is celebrated by Herrick ia Ms Twelfth
Night :

Next crowne the bowle full
With gentle Lamb's Wool,
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale too;
And thus ye must doe
To make the Wassaile a swinger.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 175

The old gentleman's whole countenance beamed with a serene
look of indwelling delight, as he stirred this mighty bowl.
Having raised it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a merry
Christmas to all present, he sent it brimming round the board,
for every one to follow his example according to the primitive
style; pronouncing it "the ancient fountain of good feeling,
where all hearts met together." l

There was much laughing and rallying, as the honest emblem
of Christmas joviality circulated, and was kissed rather coyly
by the ladies. When it reached Master Simon, he raised it
in both hands, and with the air of a boon companion, struck up
an old Wassail Chanson :

The brown bowle,

The merry browii bowle,

As it goes round about-a,

Fill

Still,

Let the world say what it will,
And drink your fill all out-a.

The deep canne,

The merry deep canne,

As thou dost freely quaff -a,

Sing

Fling,

Be as merry as a king,
And sound a lusty laugh-a.2

Much of the conversation during dinner turned upon family
topics, to which I was a stranger. There was, however, a great
deal of rallying of Master Simon about some gay widow, with
whom he was accused of having a flirtation. This attack was
commenced by the ladies ; but it was continued throughout the
dinner by the fat-headed old gentleman next the parson, with
the persevering assiduity of a slow hound ; being one of those
long-winded jokers, who, though rather dull at starting game,
are unrivalled for their talents in hunting it down. At every
pause in the general conversation, he renewed his bantering in
pretty much the same terms : winking hard at me with both
eyes, whenever he gave Master Simon what he considered a
home thrust. The latter, indeed, seemed fond of being teased

1 " The custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each having his cup.
When the steward came to the doore with the Wassel, he was to cry three times,
Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and then the chappell (chaplain) was to answer with a
song."— Archce.ologia.

2 From Poor Robin's Almanack.

176 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to be ; and he took
occasion to inform me, in an under- tone, that the lady in
question was a prodigiously fine woman and drove her own
curricle.

The dinner-time passed away in this flow of innocent hilarity,
and though the old hall may have resounded in its time with
many a scene of broader rout and revel, yet I doubt whether it
ever witnessed more honest and genuine enjoyment. How easy
it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him ;
and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making
every thing in its vicinity to freshen into smiles ! The joyous
disposition of the worthy 'Squire was perfectly contagious; he
was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world happy ;
and the little eccentricities of his humor did but season, in a
manner, the sweetness of his philanthropy.

When the ladies had retired, the conversation, as usual, be-
came still more animated : many good things were broached
which had been thought of during dinner, but which would not
exactly do for a lady's ear; and though I cannot positively
affirm that there was much wit uttered, yet I have certainly
heard many contests of rare wit produce much less laughter.
Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much
too acid for some stomachs ; but honest good-humor is the oil
and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companion-
ship equal to that, where the jokes are rather small and the
laughter abundant.

The 'Squire told several long stories of early college pranks
and adventures, in some of which the parson had been a sharer ;
though in looking at the latter, it required some effort of imagi-
nation to figure such a little dark anatomy of a man, into the
perpetrator of a madcap gambol. Indeed, the two college
chums presented pictures of what men may be made by their
different lots in life : the 'Squire had left the university to live
lustily on his paternal domains, in the. vigorous enjoyment of
prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on to a hearty and
florid old age ; whilst the poor parson, on the contrary, had
dried and withered away, among dusty tomes, in the silence
and shadows of his study. Still there seemed to be a spark of
almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmering in the bottom of
his soul ; and, as the 'Squire hinted at a sly story of the parson
and a pretty milk-maid whom the}' once met on the banks of
the Isis, the old gentleman made an " alphabet of faces," which,
as far as I could decipher his physiognomy, I verily believe was
indicative of laughter ; — indeed, I have rarely met with an old

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 177

gentleman that took absolute offence at the imputed gallantries
of his youth.

I found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry
land of sober judgment. The company grew merrier and
louder, as their jokes grew duller. Master Simon was in as
chirping a humor as a grasshopper filled with dew ; his old
songs grew of a warmer complexion, and he began to talk
maudlin about the widow. He even gave a long song about
the wooing of a widow, which he informed me he had gathered
from an excellent black-letter work entitled " Cupid's Solicitor
for Love ; " containing store of good advice for bachelors, and
which he promised to lend me ; the first verse was to this effect :

He that will woo a widow must not dally,
He must make hay while the sun doth shine;

He must not stand with her, shall I, shall I,
But boldly say, Widow, thou must be mine.

This song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made
several attempts to tell a rather broad story of Joe Miller, that
was pat to the purpose ; but he always stuck in the middle,
everybody recollecting the latter part excepting himself. The
parson, too, began to show the effects of good cheer, having
gradually settled down into a doze, and his wig sitting most
suspiciously on one side. Just at this juncture we were sum-
moned to the drawing-room, and I suspect, at the private insti-
gation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always tempered
with a proper love of decorum.

After the dinner-table was removed, the hall was given up to
the younger members of the family, who, prompted to all kind
of noisy mirth by the Oxonian and Master Simon, made its old
walls ring with their merriment, as they played at romping
games. I delight in witnessing the gambols of children, and
particularly at this happy holiday season, and could not help
stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals
of laughter. I found them at the game of blind-man's-buff.
Master Simon, who was the leader of their revels, and seemed
on all occasions to fulfil the office of that ancient potentate, the
Lord of Misrule,1 was blinded in the midst of the hall. The
little beings were as busy about him as the mock fairies about
Falstaff ; pinching him, plucking at the skirts of his coat, and
tickling him with straws. One fine blue-eyed girl of about thir-

1 At Christmasse there was in the Kinges house, wheresoever hee was lodged, a
lorde of misrule, or may ster of merie disporles, and the like had ye in the house of
every nobleman of honour; or good worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall. — STOWE.

178 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

teen, with her flaxen hair all in beautiful confusion, her frolic
face in a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a complete
picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor ; and from the shy-
ness with which Master Simon avoided the smaller game, and
hemmed this wild little nymph in corners, and obliged her to
jump shrieking over chairs, I suspected the rogue of being not
a whit more blinded than was convenient.

When I returned to the drawing-room, I found the company
seated round the fire, listening to the parson, who was deeply
ensconced in a high-backed oaken chair, the work of some
cunning artificer of yore, which had been brought from the
library for his particular accommodation. From this vener-
able piece of furniture, with which his shadowy figure and
dark weazen face so admirably accorded, he was dealing out
strange accounts of the popular superstitions and legends of the
surrounding country, with which he had become acquainted in
the course of his antiquarian researches. I am half inclined
to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinc-
tured with superstition, as men are very apt to be, who live a
recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country,
and pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the mar-
vellous and supernatural. He gave us several anecdotes of the
fancies of the neighboring peasantry, concerning the effigy of
the crusader, which lay on the tomb by the church altar. As
it was the only monument of the kind in that part of the coun-
try, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition
by the good wives of the village. It was said to get up from
the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard in stormy
nights, particularly when it thundered : and one old woman
whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had seen it through
the windows of the church, when the moon shone, slowly pa-
cing up and down the aisles. It was the belief that some wrong
had been left unredressed by the deceased, or some treasure
hidden, which kept the spirit in a state of trouble and restless-
ness. Some talked of gold and jewels buried in the tomb, over
which the spectre kept watch; and there was a story current
of a sexton, in old times, who endeavored to break his way to
the coffin at night ; but just as he reached it, received a violent
blow from the marble hand of the effigy, which stretched him
senseless on the pavement. These tales were often laughed
at by some of the sturdier among the rustics ; yet when night
came on, there were many of the stoutest unbelievers that
were shy of venturing alone in the footpath that led across the
churchyard.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 179

From these and other anecdotes that followed, the crusader
appeared to be the favorite hero of ghost stories throughout
the vicinity. His picture, which hung up in the hall, was
thought by the servants to have something supernatural about
it : for they remarked that, in whatever part of the hall you
went, the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on you. The old
porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born and brought
up in the family, and was a great gossip among the maid-ser-
vants, affirmed, that in her young days she had often heard say,
that on Midsummer eve, when it was well known all kinds of
ghosts, goblins, and fairies become visible and walk abroad,
the crusader used to mount his horse, come down from his
picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, and so to the
church to visit the tomb ; on which occasion the church door
most civilly swung open of itself ; not that he needed it — for
he rode through closed gates and even stone walls, and had
been seen by one of the dairy-maids to pass between two bars of
the great park gate, making himself as thin as a sheet of paper.

All these superstitions I found had been very much coun-
tenanced by the 'Squire, who, though not superstitious him-
self, was very fond of seeing others so. He listened to every
goblin tale of the neighboring gossips writh infinite gravity,
and held the porter's wife in high favor on account of her
talent for the marvellous. He was himself a great reader of
old legends and romances, and often lamented that he could
not believe in them ; for a superstitious person, he thought,
must live in a kind of fairy land.

Whilst we were all attention to the parson's stories, our ears
were suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous sounds
from the hall, in which were mingled something like the clang
of rude minstrelsy, with the uproar of many small voices and
girlish laughter. The door suddenly flew open, and a train
came trooping into the room, that might almost have been
mistaken for the breaking up of the court of Fairy. That in-
defatigable spirit, Master Simon, in the faithful discharge of
his duties as lord of misrule, had conceived the idea of a
Christmas mummery, or masking ; and having called in to
his assistance the Oxonian and the young officer, who were-
equally ripe for any thing that should occasion romping and
merriment, they had carried it into instant effect. The old
housekeeper had been consulted ; the antique clothes-presses
and wardrobes rummaged, and made to yield up the relics of
finery that had not seen the light for several generations ; the
younger part of the company had been privately convened

180 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

from parlor and hall, and the whole had been bedizened out,
into a burlesque imitation of an antique mask.1

Master Simon led the van as " Ancient Christmas," quaintly
apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very much the
aspect of one of the old housekeeper's petticoats, and a hat
that might have served for a village steeple, and must indubi-
tably have figured in the days of the Covenanters. From under
this, his nose curved boldly forth, flushed with a frost-bitten
bloom that seemed the very trophy of a December blast. He
was accompanied by the blue-eyed romp, dished up as " Dame
Mince Pie," in the venerable magnificence of a faded brocade,
long stomacher, peaked hat, and high-heeled shoes.

The young officer appeared as Robin Hood, in a sporting
dress of Kendal green, and a foraging cap with a gold tassel.

The costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep
research, and there was an evident eye to the picturesque,
natural to a young gallant in the presence of his mistress. The
fair Julia hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress, as " Maid
Marian." The rest of the train had been metamorphosed in
various ways. The girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient
belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings be whiskered
with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging
sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the characters of
Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other worthies celebrated in
ancient maskings. The whole was under the control of the
Oxonian, in the appropriate character of Misrule ; and I ob-
served that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with his
wand over the smaller personages of the pageant.

The irruption of this motley crew, with beat of drum, ac-
cording to ancient custom, was the consummation of uproar
and merriment. Master Simon covered himself with glory by
the stateliness with which, as Ancient Christmas, he walked a
minuet with the peerless, though giggling, Dame Mince Pie.
It was followed by a dance of all the characters, which, from
its medley of costumes, seemed as though the old family por-
traits had skipped down from their frames to join in the sport.
Different centuries were figuring at cross-hands and right and
left ; the dark ages were cutting pirouettes and rigadoons ; and
the days of Queen Bess, jigging merrily down the middle,
through a line of succeeding generations.

The worthy 'Squire contemplated these fantastic sports, and

1 Maskings or mummeries, were favorite sports at Christmas, in old times; and
the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid under contribution to furnish
dresses and fantastic disguisings. I strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken the
idea of his from Ben Jousou's Masque of Christmas.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 181

this resurrection of his old wardrobe, with the simple relish of
childish delight. He stood chuckling and rubbing his hands,
and scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwithstanding
that the latter was discoursing most authentically on the an-
cient and stately dance of the Pavon, or peacock, from which
he conceived the minuet to be derived.1 For nry part I was in
a continual excitement from the varied scenes of whim and in-
nocent gayety passing before me. It was inspiring to see wild
eyed frolic and warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from
among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off
his apathy, and catching once more the freshness of youthful
enjoyment. I felt also an interest in the scene, from the con-
sideration that these fleeting customs were posting fast into
oblivion, and that this was, perhaps, the only family in England
in which the whole of them were still punctiliously observed.
There was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry, that
gave it a peculiar zest : it was suited to the time and place ; and
as the old Manor-house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it
seemed echoing back the joviality of long-departed years.

But enough of Christmas and its gambols : it is time for me
to pause in this garrulity. Methiuks I hear the questions asked
by my graver readers, "To what purpose is all this — how is
the world to be made wiser by this talk? " Alas ! is there not
wisdom enough extant for the instruction of the world ? And
if not, are there not thousands of abler pens laboring for its
improvement? — It is so much pleasanter to please than to
instruct — to play the companion rather than the preceptor.

What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into
the mass of knowledge ; or how am I sure that my sagest de-
ductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others ? But in
writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is in my own disappoint-
ment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days
of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile
the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow — if I can now and
then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy,
prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my
reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself,
surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.2

1 Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon, from pavo, a pea-
cock, says, "It is a grave and majestic dance; the method of dancing it anciently
was by gentlemen dressed with caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their
gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains,
the motion whereof, in dancing, resembled that of a peacock." — History of Music.

2 Appendix, Note 3,

182 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

[The following modicum of local history was lately put into
my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman in a small brown
wig and snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquainted in
the course of one of my tours of observation through the centre
of that great wilderness, the City. I confess that 1 was a little
dubious at first, whether it was not one of those apocryphal
tales often passed off upon inquiring travellers like myself;
and which have brought our general character for veracity into
such unmerited reproach. On making proper inquiries, how-
ever, I have received the most satisfactory assurances of the
author's probity ; and, indeed, have been told that he is actually
engaged in a full and particular account of the very interesting
region in which he resides, of which the following may be
considered merely as a foretaste.]

[In the author's revised edition the article entitled " London Antiques " has been in-
serted here, and the above note has been replaced by that on page 293.]

LITTLE BRITAIN.

"What I write is most true ... I have a whole b'ooke of cases lying by me, which It
I should sette foorth, some grave auntients (within the hearing of Bow bell) would be
out of charity with me. — NASHE.

In the centre of the great City of London lies a small neigh-
borhood, consisting of a cluster of narrow streets and courts,
of very venerable and debilitated houses, which goes by the
name of LITTLE BRITAIN. Christ Church school and St. Bar-
tholomew's hospital bound it on the west ; Smithfield and Long
lane on the north ; Aldersgate-street, like an arm of the sea,
divides it from the eastern part of the city ; whilst the yawning
gulf of Bull-and-Mouth-street separates it from Butcher lane,
and the regions of New-Gate. Over this little territory, thus
bounded and designated, the great dome of St. Paul's, swelling
above the intervening houses of Paternoster Row, Amen. Cor-
ner, and Ave-Maria lane, looks down with an air of motherly
protection .

This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in
ancient times, the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As Lon-
don increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to the west,
and trade creeping on at their heels, took possession of their
deserted abodes. For some time, Little Britain became the
great mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy and pro-
lific race of booksellers : these also gradually deserted it,
and, emigrating beyond the great strait of New-Gate-street,
settled down in Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Church-yard ;

LITTLE BRITAIN. 183

where they continue to increase and multiply, even at the pres-
ent day.

But though thus fallen into decline, Little Britain still bears
traces of its former splendor. There are several houses, ready
to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched
with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts
and fishes ; and fruits and flowers, which it would perplex a
naturalist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate-street,
certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly family
mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided into
several tenements. Here may often be found the family of a
petty tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing among
the relics of antiquated finery, in great rambling time-stained
apartments, with fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and enormous
marble fire-places. The lanes and courts also contain many
smaller houses, not on, so grand a scale ; but, like your small
ancient gentry, sturdily maintaining* their claims to equal an-
tiquity. These have their gable-ends to the street ; great bow-
windows, with diamond panes set in lead ; grotesque carvings ;
and low-arched doorways.1

In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed
several quiet }'ears of existence, comfortably lodged in the
second floor of one of the smallest, but oldest edifices. My
sitting-room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small panels,
and set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a
particular respect for three or four high-backed, claw-footed
chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which bear the marks
of having seen better days, and have doubtless figured in some
of the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep
together, and to look down with sovereign contempt upon their
leathern-bottomed neighbors; as I have seen decayed gentry
carry a high head among the plebeian society with which they
were reduced to associate. The whole front of my sitting-room
is taken up with a bow- window ; on the panes of which are
recorded the names of previous occupants for many genera-
tions ; mingled with scraps of very indifferent gentleman-like
poetry, written in characters which I can scarcely decipher ;
and which extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain,
who has long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed away.
As I am an idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and
pay my bill regularly every week, I am looked upon as the

1 It is evident that the author of this interesting communication has included in his
general title of Little Britain, many of those little lanes and courts that belong immedi-
ately to Cloth Fair,

184 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

only independent gentleman of the neighborhood ; and being
curious to learn the internal state of a community so apparently
shut up within itself, I have managed to work my way into all
the concerns and secrets of the place.

Little Britain may truly be called the heart's-core of the city ;
the strong-hold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of Lon-
don as it was in its better days, with its antiquated folks and
fashions. Here flourish in great preservation many of the
holiday games and customs of yore. The inhabitants most
religiously eat pancakes on Shrove-Tuesday ; hot-cross-buns on
Good-Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas ; they send love-
letters on Valentine's Da}T ; burn the Pope on the Fifth of No-
vember, and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at Christmas.
Roast beef and plum-pudding are also held in superstitious
veneration, and port and sherry maintain their grounds as the
only true English wines — all others being considered vile out-
landish beverages.

Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which
its inhabitants consider the wonders of the world : such as the
great bell of St. Paul's, which sours all the beer when it tolls ;
the figures that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock ; the
Monument ; the lions in the Tower ; and the wooden giants in
Guildhall. They still believe in dreams and fortune-telling ;
and an old woman that lives in Bull-and- Mouth-street makes a
tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods, and promising
the girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered uncom-
fortable by comets and eclipses ; and if a dog howls dolefully
at night, it is looked upon as a sure sign of a death in the
place. There are even many ghost stories current, particularly
concerning the old mansion-houses ; in several of which it is
said strange sights are sometimes seen. Lords and ladies, the
former in full-bottomed wigs, hanging sleeves, and swords, the
latter in lappets, stays, hoops, and brocade, have been seen
walking up and down the great waste chambers, on moonlight
nights ; and are supposed to be the shades of the ancient pro-
prietors in their court-dresses.

Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of
the most important of the former is a tall dry old gentleman,
of the name of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecary's shop.
He has a cadaverous countenance, full of cavities and projec-
tions ; with a brown circle round each eye, like a pair of horn
spectacles. He is much thought of by the old women, who
consider him as a kind of conjurer, because he has two or three
stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop, and several snakes in

LITTLE BRITAIN.

185

bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and newspapers,
and is much given to pore over alarming accounts of plots, con-
spiracies, fires, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions ; which last
phenomena he considers as signs of the times. He has always
some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to his customers, with
their doses, and thus at the same time puts both soul and body
into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens and predic-
tions, and has the prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother
Shipton by heart. No man can make so much out of an eclipse,
or even an unusually dark day ; and he shook the tail of the
last comet over the heads of his customers and disciples until
they were nearly frightened out of their wits. He has lately
got hold of a popular legend or prophecy, on which he has been
unusually eloquent. There has been a saying current among
the ancient Sibyls, who treasure up these things, that when
the grasshopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands with
the dragon on the top of Bow Church steeple fearful events
would take place. This strange conjunction, it seems, has as
strangely come to pass. The same architect has been engaged
lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exchange, and the
steeple of Bow Church ; and, fearful to relate, the dragon and
the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jole, in the yard of his
workshop.

"Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, u may go
star-gazing, and look for conjunctions in the heavens, but here
is a conjunction on the earth, near at home, and under our own
eyes, which surpasses all the signs and calculations of astrolo-
gers." Since these portentous weathercocks have thus laid
their heads together, wonderful events had already occurred.
The good old king, notwithstanding that he had lived eighty-two
years, had all at once given up the ghost ; another king had
mounted the throne ; a royal duke had died suddenly — another,
in France, had been murdered ; there had been radical meetings
in all parts of the kingdom ; the bloody scenes at Manchester
• — the great plot in Cato-street ; — and, above all, the Queen
had returned to England ! All these sinister events are re-
counted by Mr. Skryme with a mysterious look, and a dismal
shake of the head ; and being taken with his drugs, and asso-
ciated in the minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters,
bottled serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page of
tribulation, they have spread great gloom through the minds
of the people in Little Britain. They shake their heads when-
ever they go by Bow Church, and observe, that they never
expected any good to come of taking down that steeple, which,

186 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

in old times, told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of
Whittington and his cat bears witness.

The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheesemon-
ger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family mansions,
and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied mite in the
midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of no
little standing and importance ; and his renown extends through
Huggin lane, and Lad lane, and even unto Aldermanbury.
His opinion is very much taken in affairs of state, having read
the Sunday papers for the last half century, together with the
Gentleman's Magazine, Rapin's History of England, and the
Naval Chronicle. His head is stored with invaluable maxims,
which have borne the test of time and use for centuries. It is
his firm opinion that "-it is a moral impossible," so long as
England is true to herself, that any thing can shake her : and
he has much to say on the subject of the national debt ; which,
somehow or other, he proves to be a great national bulwark
and blessing. He passed the greater part of his life in the
purlieus of Little Britain, until of late years, when, having be-
come rich, and grown into the dignity of a Sunday cane, he
begins to take his pleasure and see the world. He has there-
fore made several excursions to Hampstead, Highgate, and
other neighboring towns, where he has passed whole afternoons
in looking back upon the metropolis through a telescope, and
endeavoring to descry the steeple of St. Bartholomew's. Not
a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth-street but touches his hat
as he passes ; and he is considered quite a patron at the coach-
office of the Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's Churchyard. His
family have been very urgent for him to make an expedition to
Margate, but he has great doubts of those new gimcracks the
steamboats, and indeed thinks himself too advanced in life to
undertake sea- voyages.

Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and
party spirit ran very high at one time, in consequence of two
rival " Burial Societies " being set up in the place. One held
its meeting at the Swan and Horse-Shoe, and was patronized by
the cheesemonger ; the other at the Cock and Crown, under the
auspices of the apothecary : it is needless to say, that the latter
was the most flourishing. I have passed an evening or two at
each, and have acquired much valuable information as to the
best mode of being buried ; the comparative merits of church-
yards ; together with divers hints on the subject of patent iron
coffins. I have heard the question discussed in all its bearings,
as to the legality of prohibiting the latter on account of their

LITTLE BRITAIN. 187

durability. The feuds occasioned by these societies have hap-
pily died of late; but they were for a long time prevailing
themes of controversy, the people of Little Britain being ex-
tremely solicitous of funereal honors, and of lying comfortably
in their graves.

Besides these two funeral societies, there is a third of quite
a different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good-
humor over the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week at
a little old-fashioned house, kept by a jolly publican of the name
of Wagstaff, and bearing for insignia a resplendent half -moon,
with a most seductive bunch of grapes. The old edifice is
covered with inscriptions to catch the eye of the thirsty way-
farer; such as "Truman, Hanbury & Co.'s Entire," "Wine,
Rum, and Brandy Vaults," " Old Tom, Rum, and Compounds,
etc." This, indeed, has been a temple of Bacchus and Momus,
from time immemorial. It has always been in the family of
the Wagstaffs, so that its history is tolerably preserved by the
present landlord. It was much frequented by the gallants and
cavalieros of the reign of Elizabeth, and was looked into now
and then by the wits of Charles the Second's day. But what
Wagstaff principally prides himself upon, is, that Henry the
Eighth, in one of his nocturnal rambles, broke the head of one
of his ancestors with his famous walking-staff. This, however,
is considered as rather a dubious and vainglorious boast of the
landlord.

The club which now holds its weekly sessions here, goes by
the name of "the Roaring Lads of Little Britain." They
abound in old catches, glees, and choice stories, that are tradi-
tional in the place, and not to be met with in any other part of
the metropolis. There is a madcap undertaker, who is inimi-
table at a merry song ; but the life of the club, and indeed the
prime wit of Little Britain, is bully Wagstaff himself. His
ancestors were all wags before him, and he has inherited with
the inn a large stock of songs and jokes, which go with it from
generation to generation as heir-looms. He is a dapper little
fellow, with bandy legs and pot belly, a red face with a moist
merry eye, and a little shock of gray hair behind. At the
opening of every club night, he is called in to sing his " Con-
fession of Faith," which is the famous old drinking trowl from
Gammer Gurton's needle. He sings it, to be sure, with many
variations, as he received it from his father's lips ; for it has
been a standing favorite at the Half -Moon and Bunch of Grapes
ever since it was written ; nay, he affirms that his predecessors
have often had the honor of singing it before the nobility and

188 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

gentry at Christmas mummeries, when Little Britain was in all
its glory.1

It would do one's heart good to hear on a club-night the
shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then
the choral bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which issue
from this jovial mansion. At such times the street is lined
with listeners, who enjo}' a delight equal to that of gazing into
a confectioner's window, or snuffing up the steams of a cook-
shop. '

There are two annual events which produce great stir and
sensation in Little Britain ; these are St. Bartholomew's Fair,
and the Lord Mayor's day. During the time of the Fair, which

1 As mine host of the Half-Moon's Confession of Faith may not be familiar to the
majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of the current songs of Little Britain, I sub-
join it in its original orthography. I would observe, that the whole club always join in
the chorus with a fearful thumping on the table and clattering of pewter pots.

I cannot eate but lytle meate,

My stomacke is not good,
But sure 1 thinke that I can driuke

With him that weares a hood.
Though I go bare take ye no care,

I nothing am a colde,
1 stuff my skyn so full within,

Of joly good ale and olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare,

Both foote and hand go colde,
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,

Whether it be new or olde.

I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste

And a crab laid in the f yre ;
A little breade shall do me steade,

Much breade I not desyre.
No frost nor snow, nor winde I trowe,

Can hurte mee if I wolde,
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt

Of joly good ale and olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.

And tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe,

Loveth well good ale to seeke,
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may Bee

The teares run downe her cheeke.
Then doth shee trowle to me the bowle,

Even as a mault-worme eholde,
And sayth, sweete harte, I took my parte

Of this joly good ale and olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.

Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke,

Even as goode fellowes sholde doe,
They shall not inysse to have the blisse,

Good ale doth bring men to.
And all poore eoules that have scowred bowles,

Or have them lustily trolde,
God save the lyves of them and their wives,

Whether they be yonge or olde.
Chorus. Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.

LITTLE BRITAIN.

189

is held in the adjoining regions of Smithfield, there is nothing
going on but gossiping and gadding about. The late quiet
streets of Little Britain are overrun with an irruption of strange
figures and faces ; — every tavern is a scene of rout and revel.
The fiddle and the song are heard from the tap-room, morning,
noon, and night ; and at each window may be seen some group
of boon companions, with half-shut eyes, hats on one side, pipe
in mouth, and tankard in hand, fondling and prosing, and sing-
ing maudlin songs over their liquor. Even the sober decorum
of private families, which I must say is rigidly kept up at other
times among my neighbors, is no proof against this Saturnalia.
There is no such thing as keeping maid servants within doors.
Their brains are absolutely set madding with Punch and the
Puppet Show ; the Flying Horses ; Signior Polito ; the Fire-
Eater ; the celebrated Mr. Paap ; and the Irish Giant. The
children, too, lavish all their holiday money in toys and gilt
gingerbread, and fill the house with the Liliputian din of drums,
trumpets, and penny whistles.

But the Lord Mayor's day is the great anniversar}-. The
Lord Mayor is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain,
as the greatest potentate upon earth ; his gilt coach with six
horses, as the summit of human splendor ; and his procession,
with all the Sheriffs and Aldermen in his train, as the grandest
of earthly pageants. How they exult in the idea, that the King
himself dare not enter the city without first knocking at the gate
of Temple Bar, and asking permission of the Lord Mayor ; for
if he did, heaven and earth ! there is no knowing what might
be the consequence. The man in armor who rides before the
Lord Mayor, and is the city champion, has orders to cut down
everybody that offends against the dignity of the city ; and then
there is the little man with a velvet porringer on his head, who
sits at the window of the state coach and holds the city sword,
as lon^ as a pike-staff — Od's blood! if he once draws that
sword, Majesty itself is not safe !

Under the protection of this mighty potentate, therefore, the
good people of Little Britain sleep in peace. Temple Bar is an
effectual barrier against all internal foes ; and as to foreign in-
vasion, the Lord Mayor has but to throw himself into the
Tower, call in the train bands, and put the standing army of
Beef-eaters under arms, and he may bid defiance to the world !

Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own habits, and
its own opinions, Little Britain has long flourished as a sound
heart to this great fungous metropolis. I have pleased myself
with considering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of

190 TEE SKETCH-BOOK.

sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed-corn, to renew
the national character, when it had run to waste and degeneracy.
I have rejoiced also in the general spirit of harmony that pre-
vailed throughout it ; for though there might now and then be
a few clashes of opinion between the adherents of the cheese-
monger and the apothecary, and an occasional feud between
the burial societies, yet these were but transient clouds, and
soon passed away. The neighbors met with good-will, parted
with a sliake of the hand, and never abused each other except
behind their backs.

I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing parties at
which I have been present ; where we played at All-Fours,
Pope- Joan, Tom-come-tickle-me, and other choice old games :
and where we sometimes had a good old English country dance,
to the tune of Sir Roger de Coverley. Once a year also the
neighbors would gather together, and go on a gypsy party to
Epping Forest. It would have done any man Is heart good
to see the merriment that took place here, as we banqueted on
the grass under the trees. How we made the woods ring with
bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff and the merry
undertaker ! After dinner, too, the young folks would play at
blindman's-buff and hide-and-seek ; and it was amusing to see
them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine romping girl
now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder folks
would gather round the cheesemonger and the apothecary, to
hear them talk politics ; for they generally brought out a news-
paper in their pockets, to pass away time in the country. They
would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in argument ;
but their disputes were alwaj's adjusted by reference to a wor-
thy old umbrella-maker in a double chin, who, never exactly
comprehending the subject, managed, somehow or other, to
decide in favor of both parties.

All empires, however, says some philosopher or historian,
are doomed to changes and revolutions. Luxury and innova-
tion creep in ; factious arise ; and families now and then spring
up, whose ambition and intrigues throw the whole system into
confusion. Thus in latter days has the tranquillity of Little
Britain been grievously disturbed, and its golden simplicity of
manners threatened with total subversion, by the aspiring fam-
ily of a retired butcher.

The family of the Lambs had long been among the most
thriving and popular in the neighborhood : the Miss Lambs
were the belles of Little Britain, and everybody was pleased
when old Lamb hatt made money enough to shut up shop, and

LITTLE BRITAIN. 191

put his name on a brass plate on his door. In an evil hour,
however, one of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being a lady
in attendance on the Lady Mayoress, at her grand annual ball,
on which occasion she wore three towering ostrich feathers on
her head. The family never got over it ; they were immedi-
ately smitten with a passion for high life ; set up a one-horse
carriage, put a bit of gold lace round the errand-boy's hat, and
have been the talk and detestation of the whole neighborhood
ever since. They could no longer be induced to play at Pope-
Joan or blindman's-buff ; they could endure no dances but
quadrilles, which nobody had ever heard of in Little Britain ;
and they took to reading novels, talking bad French, and play-
ing upon the piano. Their brother, too, who had been articled
to an attorney, set up for a dandy and a critic, characters
hitherto unknown in these parts ; and he confounded the worthy
folks exceedingly by talking about Kean, the Opera, and the
Edinburgh Review.

What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which
they neglected to invite any of their old neighbors ; but they
had a great deal of genteel company from Theobald's Road,
Red-lion Square, and other parts toward the west. There were
several beaux of their brother's acquaintance from Gray's-Inn
lane and Hatton Garden ; and not less than three Aldermen's
ladies with their daughters. This was not to be forgotten or
forgiven. All Little Britain was in an uproar with the smack-
ing of whips, the lashing of miserable horses, and the rattling
and jingling of hackney-coaches. The gossips of the neigh-
borhood might be seen popping their night-caps out at every
window, watching the crazy vehicles rumble by ; and there was
a knot of virulent old cronies, that kept a look-out from a house
just opposite the retired butcher's, and scanned and criticised
every one that knocked at the door.

This dance was the cause of almost open war, and the whole
neighborhood declared they would have nothing more to say
to the Lambs. It is true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no
engagements with her quality acquaintance, would give little
humdrum tea junketings to some of her old crouies, "quite,"
as she would say, " in a friendly way ; " and it is equally true
that her invitations were always accepted, in spite of all pre-
vious vows to the contrary. Nay, the good ladies would sit
and be delighted with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would
condescend to thrum an Irish melody for them on the piano ;
and they would listen with wonderful interest to Mrs. Lamb's
anecdotes of Alderman Plunket's family of Portsokenward,

192 TIIE SKETCH-BOOK.

and the Miss Timber-lakes, the rich heiresses of Crutched-Friars ;
but then they relieved their consciences, and averted the re-
proaches of their confederates, by canvassing at the next gos-
siping convocation every thing that had passed, and pulling the
Lambs and their rout all to pieces.

The only one of the family that could not be made fashion-
able, was the retired butcher himself. Honest Lamb, in spite
of the meekness of his name, was a rough hearty old fellow,
with the voice of a lion, a head of black hair like a shoe-brush,
and a broad face mottled like his own beef. It was in vain
that the daughters always spoke of him as the " old gentle-
man," addressed him as " papa," in tones of infinite softness,
and endeavored to coax him into a dressing-gown and slippers,
and other gentlemanly habits. Do what they might, there was
no keeping down the butcher. His sturdy nature would break
through all their glozings. He had a hearty vulgar good-hu-
mor, that was irrepressible. His very jokes made his sensitive
daughters shudder ; and he persisted in wearing his blue cotton
coat of a morning, dining at two o'clock, and having a " bit of
sausage with his tea."

He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity of his
family. He found his old comrades gradually growing cold
and civil to him ; no longer laughing at his jokes ; and now
and then throwing out a fling at k' some people," and a hint
about "quality binding." This both nettled and perplexed
the honest butcher ; and his wife and daughters, with the con-
summate policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage of the
circumstance, at length prevailed upon him to give up his
afternoon's pipe and tankard at Wagstaff's ; to sit after dinner
by himself, and take his pint of port — a liquor he detested —
and to nod in his chair, in solitary and dismal gentility.

The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting along the
streets in French bonnets, with unknown beaux ; and talking
and laughing so loud, that it distressed the nerves of every good
lady within hearing. They even went so far as to attempt
patronage, and actually induced a French dancing-master to
set up in the neighborhood ; but the worthy folks of Little
Britain took fire at it, and did so persecute the poor Gaul, that
he was fain to pack up fiddle and dancing-pumps, and decamp
with such precipitation, that he absolutely forgot to pay for his
lodgings.

I had flattered myself, at first, with the idea that all this
fiery indignation on the part of the community was merely the
overflowing of their zeal for good old English manners, and

LITTLE BRITAIN. 193

their horror of innovation ; and I applauded the silent con-
tempt they were so vociferous in expressing for upstart pride,
French fashions, and the Miss Lambs. But I grieve to sa}',
that I soon perceived the infection had taken hold ; and that rcy
neighbors, after condemning, were beginning to follow their ex-
ample. I overheard my landlady importuning her husband to
let their daughters have one quarter at French and music, and
that they might take a few lessons in quadrille ; I even saw, in
the course of a few Sundays, no less than five French bonnets,
precisely like those of the Miss Lambs, parading about Little
Britain.

I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die
away ; that the Lambs might move out of the neighborhood ;
might die, or might run away with attorneys' apprentices ; and
that quiet and simplicity might be again restored to the com-
munity. But unluckily a rival power arose. An opulent oil-
man died, and left a widow with a large jointure, and a family
of buxom daughters. The young ladies had long been repining
in secret at the parsimony of a prudent father, which kept down
all their elegant aspirings. Their ambition being now no longer
restrained broke out into a blaze, and they openly took the field
against the family of the butcher. Jt is true that the Lambs,
having had the first start, had naturally an advantage of them
in the fashionable career. They could speak a little bad French,
play the piano, dance quadrilles, and had formed high acquaint-
ances, but the Trotters were not to be distanced. When the
Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats, the Miss Trot-
ters mounted four, and of twice as fine colors. If the Lambs
gave a dance, the Trotters were sure not to be behindhand ; and
though they might not boast of as good company, yet they had
double the number, and were twice as merry.

The whole community has at length divided itself into fash-
ionable factions, under the banners of these two families. The
old games of Pope-Joan and Tom-come-tickle-me are entirely
discarded ; there is no such thing as getting up an honest
country-dance ; and on my attempting to kiss a young lady
under the mistletoe last Christmas, I was indignantly repulsed ;
the Miss Lambs having pronounced it " shocking vulgar."
Bitter rivalry has also broken out as to the most fashionable
part of Little Britain ; the Lambs standing up for the dignity
of Cross-Keys Square, and the Trotters for the vicinity of St.
Bartholomew's.

Thus is this little territory torn by factions and internal dis-
sensions, like the great empire whose name it bears ; and what

194 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

will be the result would puzzle the apothecary himself, with all
his talent at prognostics, to determine ; though I apprehend
that it will terminate in the total downfall of genuine John
Bullism.

The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to me. Be-
ing a single man, and, as I observed before, rather an idle
good-for-nothing personage, I have been considered the only
gentleman by profession in the place. I stand therefore in high
favor with both parties, and have to hear all their cabinet coun-
cils and mutual backbitings. As I am too civil not to agree
with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed myself most
horribly with both parties, by abusing their opponents. I might
manage to reconcile this to my conscience, which is a truly ac-
commodating one, but I cannot to my apprehension — if the
Lambs and Trotters ever come to a reconciliation, and com-
pare notes, I am ruined !

I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in time, and
am actually looking out for some other nest in this great city,
where old English manners are still kept up ; where French is
neither eaten, drunk, danced, nor spoken ; and where there are
no fashionable families of retired tradesmen. This found, I
will, like a veteran rat, hasten away before I have an old house
about my ears — bid a long, though a sorrowful adieu to my
present abode — and leave the rival factions of the Lambs and
the Trotters, to divide the distracted empire of LITTLE BRITAIN.

STRATFORD-ON-AVON.

Thou soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream

Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspeare would dream;

The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed,

For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. — GARRICK.

To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which
he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of some-
thing like independence and territorial consequence, when, after
a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into
slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let the world
without go as it may ; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he
has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being,
the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm-chair is his
throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some twelve

STRA TFOED-ON-A VON. 1 95

feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of cer-
tainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life;
it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day ;
and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of ex-
istence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and
moments of enjoyment. " Shall I not take mine ease in mine
inn? " thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my
elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlor
of the Red Horse, at Stratforcl-on-Avon.

The words of sweet Shakspeare were just passing through
my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the
church in which he lies buried. There was a gentle tap at the
door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in her smiling face,
inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I under-
stood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My dream
of absolute dominion was at an end ; so abdicating my throne,
like a prudent potentate, to avoid being deposed, and putting
the Stratford Guide-Book under my arm, as a pillow companion,
I went to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakspeare, the Jubilee,
and David Garrick.

The next morning was one of those quickening mornings
which we sometimes have in early spring, for it was about the
middle of March. The chills of a long winter had suddenly
given way ; the north wind had spent its last gasp ; and a mild
air came stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life into
nature, and wooing every bud and flower to burst forth into fra-
grance and beauty.

I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first
visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born, and where,
according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft
of wool-cornbing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood
and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to de-
light in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its
squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in
every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and condi-
tions, from the prince to the peasant ; and present a simple, but
striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of
mankind to the great poet of nature".

The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red
face, lighted up by a cold bine anxious eye, and garnished with
artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceed-
ingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the
relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds.
There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which

196 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Shakspeare shot the deer, on his poaching exploits. There,
too, was his tobacco-box ; which proves that he was a rival
smoker of Sir Walter Ealeigh ; the sword also with which he
played Hamlet ; and the identical lantern with which Friar Law-
rence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb ! There was an
ample supply also of Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, which seems
to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the
wood of the true cross ; of which there is enough extant to build
a ship of the line.

The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shak-
speare's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook of a small
gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop.
Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching the
slowly-revolving spit, with all the longing of an urchin ; or of
an evening, listening to the cronies and gossips of Stratford,
dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the
troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the custom
of every one that visits the house to sit : whether this be done
with the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard, I
am at a loss to say ; I merely mention the fact ; and my hostess
privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was
the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new-bot-
tomed at least once in three years. It is worthy of notice also,
in the history of this extraordinary chair, that it partakes some-
thing of the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or
the flying chair of the Arabian enchanter ; for though sold
some few years since to a northern princess, yet, strange to
tell, it has found its way back again to the old chimney-corner.

I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever will-
ing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs noth-
ing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and
local anecdotes of goblins and great men ; and would advise all
travellers who travel for their gratification to be the same.
What is it to us whether these stories be true or false so long
as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and enjoy
all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like resolute
good-humored credulity in these matters ; and on this occasion
I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine
hostess to a lineal descent from the poet, when, luckily for
my faith, she put into my hands a plaj' of her own composition,
which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance.

From the birthplace of Shakspeare a few paces brought me
to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish church,
a large and venerable pile, mouldering with age, but richly orna-

STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 197

merited. It stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered
point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs
of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired : the river runs
murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which
grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom.
An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously inter-
laced, so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads
up from the gate of the yard to the church porch. The graces
are overgrown with grass ; the gray tombstones, some of them
nearly sunk into the earth, are half-covered with moss, which
has likewise tinted the reverend old building. Small birds have
built their nests among the cornices and fissures of the walls,
and keep up a continual flutter and chirping ; and rooks are
sailing and cawing about its lofty gray spire.

In the course of my rambles 1 met with the gray-headed sex-
ton Edmonds, and accompanied him home to get the key of the
church. He had lived in Stratford, man and boy, for eighty
years, and seemed still to consider himself a vigorous man, with
the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use of his legs for
a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage, looking out upon
the Avon and its bordering meadows ; and was a picture of that
neatness, order, and comfort, which pervade the humblest
dwellings in this country. A low white-washed room, with a
stone floor, carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, and
hall. Rows of pewter and earthen dishes glittered along the
dresser. On an old oaken table, well rubbed and polished, lay
the family Bible and prayer-book, and the drawer contained the
family library, composed of about half a score of well-thumbed
volumes. An ancient clock, that important article of cottage
furniture, ticked on the opposite side of the room ; with a bright
warming-pan hanging on one side of it, and the old man's horn-
handled Sunday cane on the other. The fireplace, as usual,
was wide and deep enough to admit a gossip knot within its
jambs. In one corner sat the old man's grand-daughter sewing,
a pretty blue-eyed girl, — and in the opposite corner was a
superannuated crony, whom he addressed by the name of John
Ange, and who, I found, had been his companion from child-
hood. They had plaj^ed together in infancy ; they had worked
together in manhood ; they were now tottering about and gos-
siping away the evening of life ; and in a short time they will
probably be buried together in the neighboring churchyard. It
is not often that we see two streams of existence running thus
evenly and tranquilly side by side ; it is only in such quiet
fct bosom scenes " of life that they are to be met with.

198 THE SKETCU-BOOK.

I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes of the
bard from these ancient chroniclers ; but they had nothing new
to impart. The long interval, during which Shakspeare's writ-
ings lay in comparative neglect, has spread its shadow over his-
tory ; and it is his good or evil lot, that scarcely any thing
remains to his biographers but a scanty handful of conjectures.

The sexton and his companion had been employed as carpen-
ters, on the preparations for the celebrated Stratford jubilee,
and they remembered Garrick, the prime mover of the fete, who
superintended the arrangements, and who, according to the sex-
ton, was " a short punch man, very lively and bustling." John
Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shakspeare's mulbeny-
tree, of which he had a morsel in his pocket for sale ; no doubt
a sovereign quickener of literary conception.

I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very
dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the Shakspeare
house. John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her val-
uable collection of relics, particularly her remains of the mul-
berry-tree ; and the old sexton even expressed a doubt as to
Shakspeare having been born in her house. I soon discov-
ered that he looked upon her mansion with an evil eye.
as a rival to the poet's tomb; the latter having compara-
tively but few visitors. Thus it is that historians differ at the
very outset, and mere pebbles make the stream of truth diverge
into different channels, even at the fountain-head.

We approached the church through the avenue of limes, and
entered by a Gothic porch, highly ornamented with carved doors
of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the architecture
and embellishments superior to those of most country churches.
There are several ancient monuments of nobility and gentry,
over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, and banners
dropping piecemeal from the walls. The tomb of Shakspeare is
in the chancel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms
wave before the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at
a short distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur.
A flat stone marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are
four lines inscribed on it, said to have been written by himself,
and which have in them something extremely awful. If they
are indeed his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of
the grave, which seems natural to fine sensibilities and thought-
ful minds :

Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbeare
To dig the dust inclosed here.
Blessed be he that spares these stones,
Arid curst be he that moves my bones.

S TEA TFO R D- ON- A VON. 199

Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of Shak-
speare, put up shortly after his death, and considered as a re-
semblance. The aspect is pleasant and serene, with a finely
arched forehead ; and I thought I could read in it clear indi-
cations of that cheerful, social disposition, by which he was
as much characterized among his contemporaries as by the
vastness of his genius. The inscription mentions his age at
the time of his decease — fifty-three years ; an untimely death
for the world : for what fruit might not have been expected
from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was
from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sun-
shine of popular and royal favor !

The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its
effect. It has prevented the removal of his remains from the
bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, which was
at one time contemplated. A few years since also, as some
laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth
caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch,
through which one might have, reached into his grave. No
one, however, presumed to meddle with his remains so awfully
guarded by a malediction, and lest any of the idle or the curi-
ous, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to commit
depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two
days, until the vault was finished, and the aperture closed again.
He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but
could see neither coffin nor bones ; nothing but dust. It was
something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakspeare.

Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite daugh-
ter Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb close by,
also, is a full-length effigy of his old friend John Combe, of
usurious memory ; on whom he is said to have written a ludi-
crous epitaph. There are other monuments around, but the
mind refuses to dwell on any thing that is not connected with
Shakspeare. His idea pervades the place — the whole pile
seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer checked
and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in perfect confidence :
other traces of him may be false or dubious, but here is palpa-
ble evidence and absolute certainty. As I trod the sounding
pavement, there was something intense and thrilling in the
idea, that, in very truth, the remains of Shakspeare were
mouldering beneath my feet. It was a long time before I
could prevail upon myself to leave the place ; and as I passed
through the churchyard, I plucked a branch from one of the
yew-trees, the only relic that I have brought from Stratford.

200 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion,
but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys at
Charlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakspeare,
in company with some of the roysters of Stratford, committed
his youthful offence of deer-stealing. In this harebrained ex-
ploit we are told that he was taken prisoner, and carried to
the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in doleful cap-
tivity. When brought into the presence of Sir Thomas Lucy,
his treatment must have been galling and humiliating ; for it
so wrought upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade,
which was affixed to the park gate at Charlecot.1

This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the Knight so in-
censed him, that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the
severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker.
Shakspeare did not wait to brave the united puissance of a
Knight of the Shire and a country attorney. He forthwith
abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon, and his paternal
trade ; wandered away to London ; became a hanger-on to the
theatres ; then an actor ; and, finally, wrote for the stage ; and
thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford
lost an indifferent wool-comber, and the world gained an im-
mortal poet. He retained, however, for a long time, a sense of
the harsh treatment of the Lord of Charlecot, and revenged
himself in his writings ; but in the sportive way of a good-
natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the original Justice
Shallow, and the satire is slyly fixed upon him by the Justice's
armorial bearings, which, like those of the Knight, had white
luces 2 in the quarterings.

Various attempts have been made by his biographers to
soften and explain away this early transgression of the poet ;
but I look upon it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural
to his situation and turn of mind. Shakspeare, when young,
had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent,
undisciplined, and undirected genius. The poetic temperament
has naturally something in it of the vagabond. When left to

1 The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon :

A parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse,
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it,

He thinks himself great;

Yet an asse in his state,
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate.
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it,
Then sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it.

2 The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon, about Charlecot.

STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 201

itself, it runs loosely and wildly, and delights in every thing
eccentric and licentious. It is often a turn-up of a die, in the
gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius shall turn
out a great rogue or a great poet ; and had not Shakspeare's
mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have as dar-
ingly transcended all civil, as he has all dramatic laws.

I have little doubt, that, in early life, when running, like an
unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of Stratford, he was to
be found in the company of all kinds of odd and anomalous
characters ; that he associated with all the madcaps of the
place, and was one of those unlucky urchins, at mention of
whom old men shake their heads, and predict that they will
one day come to the gallows. To him the poaching in Sir
Thomas Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray to a Scottish
Knight, and struck his eager, and as }-et untamed, imagination,
as something delightfully adventurous.1

The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still
remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly
interesting from being connected with this whimsical but event-
ful circumstance in the scanty history of the bard. As the
house stood but little more than three miles' distance from Strat-
ford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might stroll
leisurely through some of those scenes from which Shakspeare
must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery.

The country was yet naked and leafless ; but English scenery
is always verdant, and the sudden change in the temperature

1 A proof of Shakspeare's random habits and associates in his youthful days may
be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, and
mentioned in his " Picturesque Views on the Avon,"

About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market town of Bedford,
famous for its ale. Two societies of the village yeomanry used to meet, under the
appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the
neighboring villages, to a contest of drinking. Among others, the people of Strat-
ford were called out to prove the strength of their heads; and in the number
of the champions was Shakspeare, who, in spite of the proverb, that " they who
drink beer will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The
chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a retreat while
they had yet legs to carry them off the field. They had scarcely marched a mile,
when, their legs failing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab-tree, where
they passed the night. It is still standing, and goes by the name of Shakspeare's
tree.

In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and proposed returning to
Bedford, but he declined, saying he had had enough, having drunk with

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,
Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton,
Budging Exhiiil, Papist Wicksford,
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bedford.

" The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, " still bear the epithets thus given
them: the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor;
Hillborough is now called Haunted Hillborough; and Grafton is famous for the
poverty of its soil."

202 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

of the weather was surprising in its quickening effects upon
the landscape. It was inspiring and animating to witness this
first awakening of spring ; to feel its warm breath stealing
over the senses ; to see the moist mellow earth beginning to
put forth the green sprout and the tender blade ; and the trees
and shrubs, and their reviving tints and bursting buds, giving
the promise of returning foliage and flower. The cold snow-
drop, that little borderer on the skirts of winter, was to be
seen with its chaste white blossoms in the small gardens before
the cottages. The bleating of the new-dropt lambs was faintly
heard from the fields. The sparrow twittered about the
thatched eaves and budding hedges ; the robin threw a livelier
note into his late querulous wintry strain ; and the lark, spring-
ing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away
into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents of melody.
As I watched the little songster, mounting up higher and
higher, until his body was a mere speck on the white bosom
of the cloud, while the ear was still filled with his music, it
called to mind Shakspeare's exquisite little song in Cymbeline :

Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs,

On chaliced flowers that lies.

And winking mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes;
With every thing that pretty bin,

My lady sweet, arise !

Indeed, the whole country about here is poetic ground : every
thing is associated witli the idea of Shakspeare. Every old
cottage that I saw, I fancied into some resort of his boyhood,
where he had acquired his intimate knowledge of rustic life and
manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild superstitions
which he has woven like witchcraft into his dramas. For in
his. time, we are told, it was a popular amusement in winter
evenings "to sit round the fire, and tell merry tales of errant
knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves,
cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars." l

1 Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," enumerates a host of these fireside
fancies. "And they have so fraid us with bull- beggars, spirits, witches, urchins,
elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, cen-
taurs, dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars, conjurers, nymphes, changelings, incubus,
Robin-good-fellow, the spoorne. the mare, the man in the oke, the hellwaine, the fier
drake, the puckle, Tom Thorobe, hobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such other
bugs, that we were afraid of our own shadowee,"

STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 203

My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon,
which made a variety of the most fanciful doublings and wind-
ings through a wide and fertile valley : sometimes glittering
from among willows, which fringed its borders ; sometimes dis-
appearing among groves, or beneath green banks ; and some-
times rambling out into full view, and making an azure sweep
round a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom of country
Is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulat-
ing blue hills seems to be its boundary, whilst all the soft inter-
vening landscape lies in a manner enchained in the silver links
of the Avon.

After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off
into a foot-path, which led along the borders of fields and under
hedge-rows to a private gate of the park ; there was a stile,
however, for the benefit of the pedestrian ; there being a public
right of way through the grounds. I delight in these hospitable
estates, in which every one has a kind of property — at least as
far as the foot-path is concerned. It in some measure recon-
ciles a poor man to his lot, and what is more, to the better lot
of his neighbor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds thrown
open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air as freely,
and lolls as luxuriously under the shade, as the lord of the soil ;
and if he has not the privilege of calling all that he sees his
own, he has not, at the same time, the trouble of paying for it.
and keeping it in order.

I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms,
whose vast size bespoke the growth of centuries. The wind
sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed
from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged
through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the
view but a distant statue ; and a vagrant deer stalking like a
shadow across the opening.

There is something about these stately old avenues that has
the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pretended
similarity of form, but from their bearing the evidence of long
duration, and of having had their origin in a period of time
with which we associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They
betoken also the long-settled dignity, and proudly concentrated
independence of an ancient family ; and I have heard a worthy
but aristocratic old friend observe, when speaking of the sump-
tuous palaces of modern gentry, that "money could do much
with stone and mortar, but, thank Heaven, there was no such
thing as suddenly building up an avenue of oaks."

It was from wandering in early life among this rich scenery,

204 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

•

and about the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of Full-
broke, which then formed a part of the Lucy estate, that some
of Shakspeare's commentators have supposed he derived his
noble forest meditations of Jaques, and the enchanting wood-
land pictures in "As you like it." It is in lonely wanderings
through such scenes, that the mind drinks deep but quiet
draughts of inspiration, and becomes intensely sensible of the
beauty and majesty of nature. The imagination kindles into
reverie and rapture ; vague but exquisite images and ideas keep
breaking upon it ; and we revel in a mute and almost incom-
municable luxury of thought. It was in some such mood, and
perhaps under one of those very trees before me, which threw
their broad shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters
of the Avon, that the poet's fancy may have sallied forth into
that little song which breathes the very soul of a rural volup-
tuary.

Under the green-wood tree,

Who loves to lie with me,

And tune his merry throat

Unto the sweet bird's note,

Come hither, come hither, come hither,

Here shall he see

No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large building
of brick, with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen
Elizabeth's day, having been built in the first year of her reign,
The exterior remains very nearly in its original state, and ma;y
be considered a fair specimen of the residence of a wealthy
country gentleman of those days. A great gateway opens from
the park into a kind of court-yard in front of the house, orna-
mented with a grass-plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gate-
way is in imitation of the ancient barbican ; being a kind of
outpost, and flanked by towers ; though evidently for mere or-
nament, instead of defence. The front of the house is com-
pletely in the old style ; with stone shafted casements, a great
bow-window of heavy stonework, and a portal with armorial
bearings over it, carved in stone. At each corner of the build-
ing is an octagon tower, surmounted by a gilt ball and weather-
cock.

The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just
at the foot of a gently sloping bank, which sweeps down from
the rear of the house. Large herds of deer were feeding or
reposing upon its borders ; and swans were sailing majestically

8 TRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 205

upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venerable old mansion,
I called to mind Falstaff's encomium on Justice Shallow's
abode, and the affected indifference and real vanity of the
latter :

" Falstaff. You have a goodly dwelling and a rich.

" Shallow. Barren, barren, barren ; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John : — marry, good
air."

Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion
in the days of Shakspeare, it had now an air of stillness and
solitude. The great iron gateway that opened into the court-
yard was locked ; there was no show of servants bustling about
the place ; the deer gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no
longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only
sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat, stealing
with wary look and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on
some nefarious expedition. I must not omit to mention the
carcass of a scoundrel crow which I saw suspended against
the barn wall, as it shows that the Lucys still inherit that lordly
abhorrence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise of
territorial power which was so strenuously manifested in the
case of the bard.

After prowling about for some time, I at length found my
way to a lateral portal, which was the every-day entrance to
the mansion. I was courteously received by a worthy old
housekeeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of
her order, showed me the interior of the house. The greater
part has undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern
tastes and modes of living : there is a fine old oaken staircase ;
and the great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-
house, still retains much of the appearance it must have had
in the days of Shakspeare. The ceiling is arched and lofty ;
and at one end is a galley, in which stands an organ. The
weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned
the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for family
portraits. There is a wide hospitable fireplace, calculated for
an ample old-fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying place
of winter festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the huge
Gothic bow- window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon
the court-yard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the
armorial bearings of the Lucy family for many generations,
some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe in the
quarterings the three white luces by which the character of Sir
Thomas was first identified with that of Justice Shallow. They

206 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

are mentioned in the first scene of the Merry Wives of Wind-
sor, where the Justice is in a rage with Falstaff for having
"beaten his men, killed his deer, and broken into his lodge."
The poet had no doubt the offences of himself and his comrades
in mind at the time, and we may suppose the family pride and
vindictive threats of the puissant Shallow to be a caricature of
the pompous indignation of Sir Thomas.

" Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not : I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it; if
he were twenty John Falstaffe, he shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow, Esq.

" Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram.

" Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum.

"Slender. Ay, and ratalorum too, and a gentleman born, master parson; who
writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero.

" Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.

" Slender. All his successors gone before him have done 't, and all his ancestors that
come after him may : they may give the dozen white luces in their coat.

" /Shallow. The council shall hear it; it is a riot.

" Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot :
the council, hear you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take
your vizameuts in that.

" Shallow. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it ! "

Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait by Sir
Peter Lely of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the
time of Charles the Second : the old housekeeper shook her
head as she pointed to the picture, and informed me that this
lady had been sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away
a great portion of the family estate, among which was that
part of the park where Shakspeare and his comrades had killed
the deer. The lands thus lost had not been entirely regained
by the family, even at the present day. It is but justice to
this recreant dame to confess that she had a surpassingly fine
hand and arm.

The picture which most attracted my attention was a great
painting over the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir
Thomas Lucy and his family, who inhabited the hall in the
latter part of Shakspeare 's lifetime. I at first thought that it
was the vindictive knight himself, but the housekeeper assured
me that it was his son ; the only likeness extant of the former
being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the neighbor-
ing hamlet of Charlecot.1 The picture gives a lively idea of the
costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in
ruff and doublet ; white shoes with roses in them ; and has a
peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, "a cane-
colored beard." His lady is seated on the opposite side of the

1 Appendix, Note 4.

STRA TFOED-ON-A VON. 207

picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have
a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds
and spaniels are mingled in the family group ; a hawk is seated
on his perch in the foreground, and one of the children holds a
bow ; — all intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking,
and archery — so indispensable to an accomplished gentleman
in those days.1

I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had
disappeared ; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow-
chair of carved oak, in which the country 'Squire of former
days was wont to sway the sceptre of empire over his rural
domains ; and in which it might be presumed the redoubted
Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state, when the recreant
Shakspeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out
pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself with the
idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky
bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the
lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate, surrounded by
his body-guard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving-men
with their badges ; while the luckless culprit was brought in,
forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody of game-keepers, hunts-
men, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country
clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious house-maids peeping
from the half-opened doors ; while from the gallery the fair
daughters of the Knight leaned gracefully forward, eying
the youthful prisoner with that pity "that dwells in woman-
hood."— Who would have thought that this poor varlet, thus
trembling before the brief authority of a country 'Squire, and
the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of
princes ; the theme of all tongues and ages ; the dictator to the
human mind ; and was to confer immortality on his oppressor
by a caricature and a lampoon !

I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, and
I felt inclined to visit the orchard and arbor where the Justice
treated Sir John Falstaff and Cousin Silence "to a last year's
pippin of his own grafting, with a dish of caraways ; " but I

1 Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his time, observes, "his house-
keeping is seen much in the different families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on
their kennels; and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk
he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceedingly ambitious to seem delighted
with the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses." And Gilpin, in his description
of a Mr. Hastings, remarks, " he kept all sorts of hounds that run, buck, fox, hare, otter,
and badger; and had hawks of all kinds both long and short winged. His great hall was
commonly strewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and
terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds,
and spaniels."

208 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

had already spent so much of the day in my ramblings, that
I was obliged to give up any further investigations. When
about to take my leave, I was gratified by the civil entreaties
of the housekeeper and butler, that I would take some refresh-
ment — an instance of good old hospitality, which I grieve to
say we castle-hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I
make no doubt it is a virtue which the present representative
of the Lucys inherits from his ancestors ; for Shakspeare, even
in his caricature, makes Justice Shallow importunate in this
respect, as witness his pressing instances to Falstaff.

" By cock and pye, Sir, you shall not away to-night ... I will not excuse you ;
you Bhall not be excused ; excuses shall not be admitted ; there is no excuse shall serve ;
you shall not be excused . . . Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a
joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook."

I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind
had become so completely possessed by the imaginary scenes
and characters connected with it, that I seemed to be actually
living among them. Every thing brought them as it were be-
fore my eyes ; and as the door of the dining-room opened, I
almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence
quavering forth his favorite ditty :

" 'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all,
And welcome merry Shrove-tide ! "

On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the singu-
lar gift of the poet ; to be able thus to spread the magic of his
mind over the very face of nature ; to give to things and places
a charm and character not their own, and to turn this " work-
ing-day world " into a perfect fairy land. He is indeed the true
enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon
the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of
Shakspeare I had been walking all day in a complete delusion.
I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry,
which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow. I had
been surrounded with fancied jbeings ; with mere airy nothings,
conjured up by poetic power ; yet which, to me, had all the
charm of reality. I had heard Jaques soliloquize beneath his
oak ; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion adventur-
ing through the woodlands : and, above all, had been once more
present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff, and his contemporaries,
from the august Justice Shallow, down to the gentle Master
Slender, and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honors and

8TRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 209

blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of
life with innocent illusions ; who has spread exquisite and un-
bought pleasures in my checquered path ; and beguiled my spirit
in many a lonely hour, with all the cordial and cheerful sympa-
thies of social life !

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused
to contemplate the distant church in which the poet lies buried,
and could not but exult in the malediction which has kept his
ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What
honor could his name have derived from being mingled in dusty
companionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and venal
eulogiums of a titled multitude ? What would a crowded corner
in Westminster Abbey have been, compared with this reverend
pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole
mausoleum ! The solicitude about the grave may be but the
offspring of an overwrought sensibility ; but human nature is
made up of foibles and prejudices ; and its best and tenderest
affections are mingled with these factitious feelings. He who
has sought renown about the world, and has reaped a full har-
vest of worldly favor, will find, after all, that there is no love,
no admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that which
springs up in his native place. It is there that he seeks to be
gathered in peace and honor, among his kindred and his early
friends. And when the weary heart and failing head begin to
warn him that the evening of life is drawing on, he turns as
fondly as does the infant to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep
in the bosom of the scene of his childhood.

How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard,
when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he
cast back a heavy look upon his paternal home, could he have
foreseen that, before many years, he should return to it covered
with renown ; that his name should become the boast and glory
of his native place ; that his ashes should be religiously guarded
as its most precious treasure ; and that its lessening spire, on
which his eyes were fixed in tearful contemplation, should one
day become the beacon, towering amidst the gentle landscape,
to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb !

210 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER.

" I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave
him not to eat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not." — Speech of
an Indian Chief.

THERE is something in the character and habits of the North
American savage, taken in connection with the scenery over
which he is accustomed to range, its vast lakes, boundless
forests, majestic rivers, and trackless plains, that is, to my
mind, wonderfully striking and sublime. He is formed for the
wilderness, as the Arab is for the desert. His nature is stern,
simple, and enduring ; fitted to grapple with difficulties, and to
support privations. There seems but little soil in his heart for
the support of the kindly virtues ; and yet, if we would but take
the trouble to penetrate through that proud stoicism and habit-
ual taciturnity, which lock up his character from casual obser-
vation, we should find him linked to his fellow-man of civilized
life by more of those sympathies and affections than are usually
ascribed to him.

It has been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America,
in the early periods of colonization, to be doubly wronged by
the white men. They have been dispossessed of their heredi-
tary possessions, by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare ;
and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and inter-
ested writers. The colonists often treated them like beasts
of the forest ; and the author has endeavored to justify him in
his outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate than
to civilize — the latter to vilify than to discriminate. The ap-
pellations of savage and pagan were deemed sufficient to sanc-
tion the hostilities of both ; and thus the poor wanderers of the
forest were persecuted and defamed, not because they were
guilty, but because they were ignorant.

The rights of the savage have seldom been properly appre-
ciated or respected by the white man. In peace, he has too
often been the dupe of artful traffic ; in war, he has been re-
garded as a ferocious animal, whose life or death was a question
of mere precaution and convenience. Man is cruelly wasteful
of life when his own safety is endangered, and he is sheltered
by impunity ; and little mercy is to be expected from him when
he feels the sting of the reptile, and is conscious of the power to
destroy.

TRAITS. OF INDIAN CHARACTER. 211

The same prejudices which were indulged thus early, exist
in common circulation at the present day. Certain learned
societies have, it is true, with laudable diligence, endeavored to
investigate and record the real characters and manners of the
Indian tribes ; the American government, too, has wisely and
humanely exerted itself to inculcate a friendly and forbearing
spirit towards them, and to protect them from fraud and injus-
tice.1 The current opinion of the Indian character, however, is
too apt to be formed from the miserable hordes which infest the
frontiers, and hang on the skirts of the settlements. These are
too commonly composed of degenerate beings, corrupted and
enfeebled by the vices of society, without being benefited by its
civilization. That proud independence, which formed the main
pillar of savage virtue, has been shaken down, and the whole
moral fabric lies in ruins. Their spirits are humiliated and de-
based by a sense of inferiority, and their native courage cowed
and daunted by the superior knowledge and power of their
enlightened neighbors. Society has advanced upon them like
one of those withering airs that will sometimes breathe desola-
tion over a whole region of fertility. It has enervated their
strength, multiplied their diseases, and superinduced upon their
original barbarity the low vices of artificial life. It has given
them a thousand superfluous wants, whilst it has diminished
their means of mere existence. It has driven before it the ani-
mals of the chase, who fly from the sound of the axe and the
smoke of the settlement, and seek refuge in the depths of
remoter forests and yet untrodden wilds. Thus do we too often
find the Indians on our frontiers to be the mere wrecks and
remnants of once powerful tribes, who have lingered in the
vicinity of the settlements, and sunk into precarious and vaga-
bond existence. Poverty, repining and hopeless poverty, a
canker of the mind unknown in savage life, corrodes their spirits
and blights every free and noble quality of their natures. They
become drunken, indolent, feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous.
They loiter like vagrants about the settlements, among spacious
dwellings, replete with elaborate comforts, which only render
them sensible of the comparative wretchedness of their own
condition. Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes ;
but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over

1 The American government has been indefatigable in its exertions to ameliorate the
situation of the Indians, and to introduce among them the arts of civilization, and civil
and religious knowledge. To protect them from the frauds of the white traders, no
purchase of land from them by individuals is permitted; nor is any person allowed to
receive lands from them as a present, without the express sanction of government
These precautions are strictly enforced.

212 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the fields ; but they are starving in the midst of its abundance ;
the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden ; but they
feel as reptiles that infest it.

How different was their state while yet the undisputed lords
of the soil ! Their wants were few, and the means of gratifi-
cation within their reach. They saw every one around them
sharing the same lot, enduring the same hardships, feeding on
the same aliments, arrayed in the same rude garments. No
roof then rose, but was open to the homeless stranger ; no
smoke curled among the trees, but he was welcome to sit down
by its fire and join the hunter in his repast. " For," says an
old historian of New England, " their life is so void of care,
and they are so loving also, that they make use of those things
they enjoy as common goods, and are therein so compassionate,
that rather than one should starve through want, they would
starve all; thus they pass their time merrily, not regarding
our pomp, but are better content with their own, which some
men esteem so meanly of." Such were the Indians, whilst in
the pride and energy of their primitive natures ; they resemble
those wild plants which thrive best in the shades of the forest,
but shrink from the hand of cultivation, and perish beneath the
influence of the sun.

In discussing the savage character, writers have been too
prone to indulge in vulgar prejudice and passionate exaggera-
tion, instead of the candid temper of true philosoph}-. They
have not- sufficiently considered the peculiar circumstances in
which the Indians have been placed, and the peculiar principles
under which they have been educated. No being acts more
rigidly from rule than the Indian. His whole conduct is regu-
lated according to some general maxims early implanted in his
mind. The moral laws that govern him are, to be sure, but
few ; but then he conforms to them all ; — the white man
abounds in laws of religion, morals, and manners, but how
many does he violate !

A frequent ground of accusation against the Indians is their
disregard of treaties, and the treachery and wantonness with
which, in time of apparent peace, they will suddenly fly to
hostilities. The intercourse of the white men with the Indians,
however, is too apt to be cold, distrustful, oppressive, and in-
sulting. They seldom treat them with that confidence and
frankness which are indispensable to real friendship ; nor is
sufficient caution observed not to offend against those feelings
of pride or superstition, which often prompt the Indian to hos-
tility quicker than mere considerations of interest. The solitary

TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER. 213-

savage feels silently, but acutely. His sensibilities are not
diffused over so wide a surface as those of the white man ; but
the}7 run in steadier and deeper channels. His pride, his affec-
tions, his superstitions, are all directed towards fewer objects ;
but the wounds inflicted on them are proper tionably severe,
and furnish motives of hostility which we cannot sufficiently
appreciate. Where a community is also limited in number, and
forms one great patriarchal family, as in an Indian tribe, the
injury of an individual is the injury of the whole, and the senti-
ment of vengeance is almost instantaneously diffused. One
council-fire is sufficient for the discussion and arrangement of
a plan of hostilities. Here all the fighting men and sages
assemble. Eloquence and superstition combine to inflame the
minds of the warriors. The orator awakens their martial ardor,
and they are wrought up to a kind of religious desperation, by
the visions of the prophet and the* dreamer.

An instance of one of those sudden exasperations, arising
from a motive peculiar to the Indian character, is extant in an
old record of the early settlement of Massachusetts. The
planters of Plymouth had defaced the monuments of the dead
at Passonagessit, and had plundered the grave of the Sachem's
mother of some skins with which it had been decorated. The
Indians are remarkable for the reverence which they entertain
for the sepulchres of their kindred. Tribes that have passed
generations exiled from the abodes of their ancestors, when by
chance they have been travelling in the vicinit}7, have been
known to turn aside from the highway, and, guided by wonder-
fully accurate tradition, have crossed the country for miles to
some tumulus, buried perhaps in woods, where the bones of
their tribe were anciently deposited ; and there have passed
hours in silent meditation. Influenced by this sublime and
holy feeling, the Sachem, whose mother's tomb had been vio-
lated, gathered his men together, and addressed them in the
following beautifully simple and pathetic harangue ; a curious
specimen of Indian eloquence, and an affecting instance of filial
piety in a savage :

" When last the glorious light of all the sky was underneath
this globe, and birds grew silent, I began to settle, as my cus-
tom is, to take repose. Before mine eyes were fast closed,
methought I saw a vision, at which my spirit was much
troubled ; and trembling at that doleful sight, a spirit cried
aloud, 'Behold, my son, whom I have cherished, see the breasts
that gave thee suck, the hands that lapped thee warm, and fed
thee oft. Canst thou forget to take revenge of those wild

214 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

people, who have defaced my monument in a despiteful manner,
disdaining our antiquities and honorable customs? See, now,
the Sachem's grave lies like the common people, defaced by an
ignoble race. Thy mother doth complain, and implores thy aid
against this thievish people, who have newly intruded on out
iand. If this be suffered, I shall not rest quiet in my everlast-
ing habitation.' This said, the spirit vanished, and I, all in a
sweat, not able scarce to speak, began to get some strength,
and recollect my spirits that were fled, and determined to demand
your counsel and assistance."

I have adduced this anecdote at some length, as it tends to
show how these sudden acts of hostility, which have been at-
tributed to caprice and perfidy, may often arise from deep and
generous motives, which our inattention to Indian character
and customs prevents our properly appreciating.

Another ground of violent outcry against the Indians, is their
barbarity to the vanquished. This had its origin partly in policy
and partly in superstition. The tribes, though sometimes called
nations, were never so formidable in their numbers, but that
the loss of several warriors was sensibly felt ; this was particu-
larly the case when they had been frequently engaged in war-
fare ; and many an instance occurs in Indian history, where a
tribe, that had long been formidable to its neighbors, has been
broken up and driven away, by the capture and massacre of its
principal fighting men. There was a strong temptation, there-
fore, to the victor, to be merciless ; not so much to gratify any
cruel revenge, as to provide for future security. The Indians
had also the superstitious belief, frequent among barbarous
nations, and prevalent also among the ancients, that the manes
of their friends who had fallen in battle were soothed by the
blood of the captives. The prisoners, however, who are not
thus sacrificed, are adopted into their families in the place of
the slain, and are treated with the confidence and affection of
relatives and friends ; nay, so hospitable and tender is their
entertainment, that when the alternative is offered them, they
will often prefer to remain with their adopted brethren, rather
than return to the home and the friends of their youth.

The cruelty of the Indians towards their prisoners has been
heightened since the colonization of the whites. What was
formerly a compliance with policy and superstition, has been
exasperated into a gratification of vengeance. They cannot but
be sensible that the white men are the usurpers of their ancient
dominion, the cause of their degradation, and the gradual de-
stroyers of their race. They go forth to battle, smarting with

TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER. 215

injuries and indignities which they have individually suffered,
and they are driven to madness and despair b}' the wide-spread-
ing desolation, and the overwhelming ruin of European warfare.
The whites have too frequently set them an example of violence,
by burning their villages and laying waste their slender means
of subsistence ; and yet they wonder that savages do not show
moderation and magnanimity towards those who have left them
nothing but mere existence and wretchedness.

We stigmatize the Indians, also, as cowardly and treacherous,
because they use stratagem in warfare, in preference to open
force ; but in this they are fully justified by their rude code of
honor. They are early taught that stratagem is praiseworthy :
the bravest warrior thinks it no disgrace to lurk in silence, and
take every advantage of his foe : he triumphs in the superior
craft and sagacity by which he has been enabled to surprise and
destroy an enemy. Indeed, man is naturally more prone to
subtilty than open valor, owing to his physical weakness in
comparison with other animals. They are endowed with natu-
ral weapons of defence : with horns, with tusks, with hoofs,
and talons : but man has to depend on his superior sagacity.
In all his encounters with these, his proper enemies, he resorts
to stratagem ; and when he perversely turns his hostility against
his fellow-man, he at first continues the same subtle mode of
warfare.

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our
enemy, with the least harm to ourselves ; and this of course is
to be effected by stratagem. That chivalrous courage which
induces us to despise the suggestions of prudence, and to rush
in the face of certain danger, is the offspring of society-, and
produced by education. It is honorable, because it is in fact
the triumph of lofty sentiment over an instinctive repugnance
to pain, and over those yearnings after personal ease and
security, which society has condemned as ignoble. It is kept
alive by pride and the fear of shame ; and thus the dread of
real evil is overcome by the superior, dread of an evil which
exists but in the imagination. It has been cherished and stimu-
lated also by various means. It has been the theme of spirit-
stirring song and chivalrous story. The poet and minstrel have
delighted to shed round it the splendors of fiction ; and even
the historian has forgotten the sober gravity of narration, and
broken forth into enthusiasm and rhapsody in its praise. Tri-
umphs and gorgeous pageants have been its reward : monu-
ments, on which art has exhausted its skill, and opulence its
treasures, have been erected to perpetuate a nation's gratitude

216 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

and admiration. Thus artificially excited, courage has risen to
an extraordinary and factitious degree of heroism ; and, arrayed
in all the glorious " pomp and circumstance of war," this turbu-
lent quality has even been able to eclipse many of those quiet,
but invaluable virtues, which silently ennoble the human char-
acter, and swell the tide of human happiness.

But if courage intrinsically consists in the defiance of danger
and pain, the Hfe of the Indian is a continual exhibition of it.
He lives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. Peril and
adventure are congenial to his nature ; or rather seem neces-
sary to arouse his faculties and to give an interest to his exist-
ence. Surrounded by hostile tribes whose mode of warfare is
by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared for fight, and
lives with his weapons in his hands. As the ship careers in
fearful singleness through the solitudes of ocean, — as the bird
mingles among clouds and storms, and wings its way, a mere
speck, across the pathless fields of air ; so the Indian holds his
course, silent, solitary, but undaunted, through the boundless
bosom of the wilderness. His expeditions may vie in distance
and danger with the pilgrimage of the devotee, or the crusade
of the knight-errant. He traverses vast forests, exposed to the
hazards of lonely sickness, of lurking enemies, and pining
famine. Stormy lakes, those great inland seas, are no obsta-
cles to his wanderings : in his light canoe of bark, he sports
like a feather on their waves, and darts with the swiftness of
an arrow down the roaring rapids of the rivers. His very sub-
sistence is snatched from the midst of toil and peril. He gains
his food by the hardships and dangers of the chase ; he wraps
himself in the spoils of the bear, the panther, and the buffalo ;
and sleeps among the thunders of the cataract.

No hero of ancient or modern days can surpass the Indian in
his lofty contempt of death, and the fortitude with which he
sustains its cruelest infliction. Indeed, we here behold him
rising superior to the white man, in consequence of his peculiar
education. The latter rushes to glorious death at the cannon's
mouth ; the former calmly contemplates its approach, and tri-
umphantly endures it, amidst the varied torments of surround-
ing foes, and the protracted agonies of fire. He even takes a
pride in taunting his persecutors, and provoking their ingenuity
of torture ; and as the devouring flames prey on his very vitals,
and the flesh shrinks from the sinews, he raises his last song of
triumph, breathing the defiance of an uncouquered heart, and
invoking the spirits of his fathers to witness that he dies with-

TEA1TS OF INDIAN CHARACTER. • 217

Notwithstanding the obloquy with which the early historians
have overshadowed the characters of the unfortunate natives,
some bright gleams occasionally break through, which throw a
degree of melancholy lustre on their memories. Facts are occa-
sionally to be met with in the rude annals of the eastern prov-
inces, which, though recorded with the coloring of prejudice
and bigotry, yet speak for themselves ; and will be dvvelt on
with applause and sympathy, when prejudice shall have passed
away.

In one of the homely narratives of the Indian wars in New
England, there is a touching account of the desolation carried
into the tribe of the Pequod Indians. Humanity shrinks from
the cold-blooded detail of indiscriminate butchery. In one
place we read of the surprisal of an Indian fort in the night,
when the wigwams were wrapped in flames, and the miserable
inhabitants shot down and slain in attempting to escape, "all
being despatched and ended in the course of an hour." After
a series of similar transactions, "our soldiers," as the histo-
rian piously observes, "being resolved by God's assistance to
make a final destruction of them," the unhappy savages being
hunted from their homes and fortresses, and pursued with fire
and sword, a scanty but gallant band, the sad remnant of the
Pequod warriors, with their wives and children, took refuge in
a swamp.

Burning with indignation, and rendered sullen by despair ;
with hearts bursting with grief at the destruction of their tribe,
and spirits galled and sore at the fancied ignominy of their
defeat, they refused to ask their lives at the hands of an insult-
ing foe, and preferred death to submission.

As the night drew on, they were surrounded in their dismal
retreat, so as to render escape impracticable. Thus situated,
their enemy " plied them with shot all the time, by which
means many were killed and buried m the mire." In the
darkness and fog that preceded the dawn of day, some few
broke through the besiegers and escaped into the woods : " the
rest were left to the conquerors, of which many were killed in
the swamp; like sullen dogs who would rather, in their self-
willed ness and madness, sit still and be shot through, or cut to
pieces," than implore for mercy. When the day broke upon
this handful of forlorn but dauntless spirits, the soldiers, we
are told, entering the swamp, " saw several heaps of them sit-
ting close together, upon whom the}* discharged their pieces,
laden with ten or twelve pistol-bullets at a time ; putting the
muzzles of the pieces under the boughs, within a few yards of

218 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

them ; so as, besides those that were found dead, many more
were killed and sunk into the mire, and never were minded
more by friend or foe."

Can any one read this plain unvarnished tale, without ad-
miring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness
of spirit, that seemed to nerve the hearts of these self-taught
heroes, and to raise them above the instinctive feelings of
human nature? When the Gauls laid waste the city of Rome,
they found the senators clothed in their robes and seated with
stern tranquillity in their curule chairs ; in this manner they
suffered death without resistance or even supplication. Such
conduct was, in them, applauded as noble and magnanimous —
in the hapless Indians, it was reviled as obstinate and sullen.
How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstance ! How
different is virtue, clothed in purple and enthroned in state,
from virtue naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a
wilderness !

But I forbear to dwell on these gloomy pictures. The east-
ern tribes have long since disappeared ; the forests that shel-
tered them have been laid low, and scarce airy traces remain of
them in the thickly-settled states of New-England, excepting
here and there the Indian name of a village or a stream. And
such must sooner or later be the fate of those other tribes
which skirt the frontiers, and have occasionally been inveigled
from their forests to mingle in the wars of white men. In a
little while, and they will go the way that their brethren have
gone before. The few hordes which still linger about the
shores of Huron and Superior, and the tributary streams of
the Mississippi, will share the fate of those tribes that once
spread over Massachusetts and Connecticut, and lorded it
along the proud banks of the Hudson ; of that gigantic race
said to have existed on the borders of the Susquehanna ; and
of those various nations that flourished about the Potomac
and the Rappahannock, and that peopled the forests of the vast
valley of Shenandoah. They will vanish like a vapor from
the face of the earth ; their very history will be lost in forget-
fuluess ; and " the places that now know them will know them
no more forever." Or if, perchance, some dubious memorial
of them should survive, it may be in the romantic dreams of
the poet, to people in imagination his glades and groves, like
the fauns and satyrs and sylvan deities of antiquity. But
should he venture upon the dark story of their wrongs and
wretchedness ; should he tell how they were invaded, cor-
rupted, despoiled ; driven from their native abodes and the

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 219

sepulchres of their fathers ; hunted like wild beasts about the
earth ; and sent down with violence and butchery to the grave
• — posterity will either turn with horror and incredulity from
the tale, or blush with indignation at the inhumanity of their
forefathers. "We are driven back," said an old warrior,
"until we can retreat no farther — our hatchets are broken,
our bows are snapped, our fires are nearly extinguished — a
little longer and the white man will cease to persecute us — for
we shall cease to exist."

PHILIP OF POKANOKET.

AN INDIAN MEMOIR.

As monumental bronze unchanged his look :

A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook;

Train'd, from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier,

The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook

Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear —

A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. — CAMPBELL.

IT is to be regretted that those early writers who treated of
the discovery and settlement of America have not given us
more particular and candid accounts of the remarkable charac-
ters that flourished in savage life. The scanty anecdotes which
have reached us are full of peculiarity and interest ; they fur-
nish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what
man is in a comparatively primitive state, and what he owes to
civilization. There is something of the charm of discovery
in lighting upon these wild and unexplored tracts of human
nature ; in witnessing, as it were, the native growth of moral
sentiment ; and perceiving those generous and romantic quali-
ties which have been artificially cultivated by society, vegetating
in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence.

In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the
existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his
fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold
and peculiar traits of native character are refined away, or
softened down by the levelling influence of what is termed
good breeding ; and he practises so many petty deceptions, and
affects so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of popu-
larity, that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his arti-

220 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

ficial character. The Indian, on the contrary, free from the
restraints and refinements of polished life, and, in a great
degree, a solitary and independent being, obeys the impulses
of his inclination or the dictates of his judgment ; and thus the
attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly
great and striking. Society is like a lawn, where every rough-
ness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye
is delighted b}' the smiling verdure of a velvet surface;. he,
however, who would study Nature in its wildness and variety,
must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem
the torrent, and dare the precipice.

These reflections arose on casually looking through a volume
of early colonial history, wherein are recorded, with great bit-
terness, the outrages of the Indians, and their wars with the
settlers of New-England. It is painful to perceive, even from
these partial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization may
be traced in the blood of the aborigines ; how easily the colo-
nists were moved to hostility by the lust of conquest; how
merciless and exterminating was their warfare. The imagina-
tion shrinks at the idea, how many intellectual beings were
hunted from the earth — how many brave and noble hearts, of
Nature's sterling coinage, were broken down and trampled in
the dust !

Such was the fate of PHILIP OF POKANOKET, an Indian war-
rior, whose name was once a terror throughout Massachusetts
and Connecticut. He was the most distinguished of a number
of contemporary Sachems, who reigned over the Pequods, the
Narragansets, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern tribes,
at the time of the first settlement of New-England : a band of
native untaught heroes ; who made the most generous struggle
of which human nature is capable ; fighting to the last gasp in
the cause of their country, without a hope of victory or a
thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry, and fit sub-
jects for local story and romantic fiction, they have left scarcely
any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk, like gi-
gantic shadows, in the dim twilight of tradition.1

When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by
their descendants, first took refuge on the shores of the New
World, from the religious persecutions of the Old, their situa-
tion was to the last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few in
number, and that number rapidly perishing away through sick-

1 While correcting the proof-sheets of this article, the author is informed, that a
celebrated English poet has nearly finished an heroic poem on the story of Philip of
Pokanoket.

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 221

ness and hardships ; surrounded by a howling wilderness and
savage tribes ; exposed to the rigors of an almost arctic win-
ter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting climate ; their minds
were filled with doleful forebodings, and nothing preserved
them from sinking into despondency but the strong excitement
of religious enthusiasm. In this forlorn situation they were
visited by Massasoit, chief Sagamore of the Wampanoags, a
powerful chief, who reigned over a great extent of country.
Instead of taking advantage of the scanty number of the stran-
gers, and expelling them from his territories into which they had
intruded, he seemed at once to conceive for them a generous
friendship, and extended towards them the rights of primitive
hospitality. He came early in the spring to their settlement
of New-Plymouth, attended by a mere handful of followers ;
entered into a solemn league of peace and amity ; sold them a
portion of the soil, and promised to secure for them the good-
will of his savage allies. Whatever may be said of Indian
perfidy, it is certain that the integrity and good faith of Mas-
sasoit have never been impeached. He continued a firm and
magnanimous friend of the white men ; suffering them to ex-
tend their possessions, and to strengthen themselves in the
land ; and betraying no jealousy of their increasing power and
prosperity. Shortly before his death, he came once more to
New-Plymouth, with his son Alexander, for the purpose of
renewing the covenant of peace, and of securing it to his pos-
terity.

At this conference, he endeavored to protect the religion of
his forefathers from the encroaching zeal of the missionaries ;
and stipulated that no further attempt should be made to draw
off his people from their ancient faith ; but, finding the English
obstinately opposed to any such condition, he mildly relin-
quished the demand. Almost the last act of his life was to
bring his two sons, Alexander and Philip (as they had been
named by the English) to the residence of a principal settler,
recommending mutual kindness and confidence ; and entreating
that the same love and amity which had existed between the
white men and himself, might be continued afterwards with his
children. The good old Sachem died in peace, and was happily
gathered to his fathers before sorrow came upon his tribe ; his
children remained behind to experience the ingratitude of white
men.

His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was of a quick
and impetuous temper, and proudly tenacious of his hereditary
rights and dignity. The intrusive policy and dictatorial con-

222 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

duct of the strangers excited his indignation ; and he beheld
with uneasiness their exterminating wars with the neighboring
tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility, being
accused of plotting with the Narragansets to rise against the
English and drive them from the land. It is impossible to say
whether this accusation was warranted by facts, or was grounded
on mere suspicions. It is evident, however, by the violent and
overbearing measures of the settlers, that they had by this time
begun to feel conscious of the rapid increase of their power,
and to grow harsh and inconsiderate in their treatment of the
natives. They despatched an armed force to seize upon Alex-
ander, and to bring him before their courts. He was traced to
his woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting house, where
he was reposing with a band of his followers, unarmed, after the
toils of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest, and the out-
rage offered to his sovereign dignity, so preyed upon the irasci-
ble feelings of this proud savage, as to throw him into a raging
fever ; he was permitted to return home on condition of sending
his son as a pledge for his reappearance ; but the blow he had
received was fatal, and before he had reached his home he fell
a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit.

The successor of Alexander was Metacomet, or King Philip,
as he was called by the settlers, on account of his lofty spirit
and ambitious temper. These, together with his well-known
energy and enterprise, had rendered him au object of great
jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of having always
cherished a secret and implacable hostility towards the whites.
Such ma}* very probably, and very naturally, have been the
case. He considered them as originally but mere intruders into
the country, who had presumed upon indulgence, and were ex-
tending an influence baneful to savage life. He saw the whole
race of his countrymen melting before them from the face of
the earth ; their territories slipping from their hands, and their
tribes becoming feeble, scattered, and dependent. It may be
said that the soil was originally purchased by the settlers ; but
who does not know the nature of Indian purchases, in the early
periods of colonization? The Europeans always made thrifty
bargains, through their superior adroitness in traffic ; and they
gained vast accessions of territory, by easily-provoked hostili-
ties. An uncultivated savage is never a nice inquirer into the
refinements of law, by which an injury may be gradually and
legall}r inflicted. Leading facts are all by which he judges ;
and it was enough for Philip to know, that before the intrusion
of the Europeans his countrymen were lords of the soil, and

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 223

that now they were becoming vagabonds in the land of their
fathers.

But whatever may have been his feelings of general hostility,
and his particular indignation at the treatment of his brother,
he suppressed them for the present ; renewed the contract with
the settlers, and resided peaceably for many years at Pokano-
ket, or, as it was called by the English, Mount Hope,1 the an-
cient seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspicions, however,
which were at first but vague and indefinite, began to acquire
form and substance ; and he was at length charged with at-
tempting to instigate the various eastern tribes to rise at once,
and, by a simultaneous effort, to throw off the yoke of their
oppressors. It is difficult at this distant period to assign the
proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indians.
There was a proneness to suspicion, and an aptness to acts
of violence on the part of the whites, that gave weight and
importance to every idle tale. Informers abounded, where tale-
bearing met with countenance and reward ; and the sword was
readily unsheathed, when its success was certain, and it carved
out empire.

The only positive evidence on record against Philip is the
accusation of one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, whose natural
cunning had been quickened by a partial education which he
had received among the settlers. He changed his faith and his
allegiance two or three times, with a facility that evinced the
looseness of his principles. He had acted for some time as
Philip's confidential secretary and counsellor, and had enjoyed
his bounty and protection. Finding, however, that the clouds
of adversity were gathering round his patron, he abandoned
his service and went over to the whites ; and, in order to gain
their favor, charged his former benefactor with plotting against
their safety. A rigorous investigation took place. Philip and
several of his subjects submitted to be examined, but nothing
was proved against them. The settlers, however, had now
gone too far to retract ; they had previously determined that
Philip was a dangerous neighbor ; they had publicly evinced
their distrust ; and had done enough to insure his hostility ;
according, therefore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these
cases, his destruction had become necessary to their security.
Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly afterwards
found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the vengeance of
his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom was a friend and counsel-

1 Xow Bristol, Rhode Island.

224 THE SKETCH-ROOK.

lor of Philip, were apprehended and tried, and, on the testimony
of one very questionable witness, were condemned and executed
as murderers.

This treatment of his subjects and ignominious punishment
of his friend, outraged the pride and exasperated the passions
of Philip. The bolt which had fallen thus at his very feet,
awakened him to the gathering storm, and he determined to
trust himself no longer in the power of the white men. The
fate of his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled in
his mind ; and he had a further warning in the tragical story of
Miantonimo, a great sachem of the Narragansets, who, after
manfully facing his accusers before a tribunal of the colonists,
exculpating himself from a charge of conspiracy, and receiving
assurances of amity, had been perfidiously despatched at their in-
stigation. Philip, therefore, gathered his fighting men about him ;
persuaded all strangers that he could, to join his cause ; 'sent the
women and children to the Narragansets for safety ; and wher-
ever he appeared, was continually surrounded by armed warriors.

When the two parties were thus in a state of distrust and
irritation, the least spark was sufficient to set them in a flame.
The Indians, having weapons in their hands, grew mischievous,
and committed various petty depredations. In one of their
maraudings, a warrior was fired on and killed by a settler.
This was the signal for open hostilities ; the Indians pressed to
revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm of war
resounded through the Plymouth colony.

In the early chronicles of these dark and melancholy times,
we meet with many indications of the diseased state of the
public mind. The gloom of religious abstraction, and the wild-
ness of their situation, among trackless forests and savage
tribes, had disposed the colonists to superstitious fancies, and
had filled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras of
witchcraft and spectrology. They were much given also to a
belief in omens. The troubles with Philip and his Indians
were preceded, we are told, by a variety of those awful warn-
ings which forerun great and public calamities. The perfect
form of an Indian bow appeared in the air at New-Plymouth,
which was looked upon by the inhabitants as a " prodigious
apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other towns in
their neighborhood, u was heard the report of a great piece of
ordnance, with the shaking of the earth and a considerable
echo."1 Others were alarmed on a still sunshiny morning, by

1 The Rev. Increase Mather's History.

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 225

the discharge of guns and muskets ; bullets seemed to whistle
past them, and the noise of drums resounded in the air, seem
ing to pass away to the westward ; others fancied that they
heard the galloping of horses over their heads ; and certain
monstrous births which took place about the time, filled the
superstitious in some towns with doleful forebodings. Many
of these portentous sights' and sounds may be ascribed to
natural phenomena ; to the northern lights which occur vividly
in those latitudes ; the meteors which explode in the air ; the
casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of the forest ;
the crash of falling trees or disrupted rocks ; and to those other
uncouth sounds and echoes, which will sometimes strike the
ear so strangely amidst the profound stillness of woodland soli-
tudes. These may have startled some melancholy imaginations,
may have been exaggerated by the love for the marvellous, and
listened to with that avidity with which we devour whatever
is fearful and mysterious. The universal currency of these
superstitious fancies, and the grave record made of them by one
of the learned men of the day, are strongly characteristic of the
times.

The nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often
distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages.
On the part of the whites, it was conducted with superior skill
and success ; but with a wastefulness of the blood, and a disre-
gard of the natural rights of their antagonists : on the part of
the Indians it was waged with the desperation of men fearless
of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace, but hu-
miliation, dependence, and decay.

The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy
clergyman of the time, who dwells with horror and indignation
on every hostile act of the Indians, however justifiable, whilst
he mentions with applause the most sanguinary atrocities of
the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor;
without considering that he was a true-born prince, gallantly
fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the wrongs of his
family ; to retrieve the tottering power of his line ; and to de-
liver his native land from the oppression of usurping strangers.

The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had
really been formed, was worthy of a capacious mind, and, had
it not been prematurely discovered, might have been over-
whelming in its consequences. The war that actually broke
out was but a war of detail ; a mere succession of casual ex-
ploits and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth the
military genius and daring prowess of Philip ; and wherever, in

226 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been given
of it, we can arrive at simple facts, we find him displaying a
vigorous mind ; a fertility of expedients ; a contempt of suffer-
ing and hardship ; and an unconquerable resolution, that com-
mand our sympathy and applause.

Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he threw
himself into the depths of those vast and trackless forests that
skirted the settlements, and were almost impervious to any
thing but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he gathered to-
gether his forces, like the storm accumulating its stores of mis-
chief in the bosom of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly
emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying havoc and
dismay into the villages. There were now and then indications
of these impending ravages, that filled the minds of the colo-
nists with awe and apprehension. The report of* a distant gun
would perhaps be heard from the solitary woodland, where
there was known to be no white man ; the cattle which had
been wandering in the woods would sometimes return home
wounded ; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking about
the skirts of the forest, and suddenly disappearing ; as the
lightning will sometimes be seen playing silently about the edge
of the cloud that is brewing up the tempest.

Though sometimes pursued, and even surrounded by the
settlers, 3Tet Philip as often escaped almost miraculously from
their toils ; and plunging into the wilderness, would be lost to
all search or inquiry until he again emerged at some far dis-
tant quarter, laying the country desolate. Among his strong-
holds were the great swamps or morasses, which extend in
some parts of New-E)ngland ; composed of loose bogs of deep
black mud ; perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank weeds,
the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen trees, over-
shadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uncertain footing and
the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds, rendered them almost
impracticable to the white man, though the Indian could
thrid their labyrinths with the agility o*f a deer. Into one of
these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once
driven with a band of his followers. The English did not dare
to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark and frightful
recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits, or be
shot down by lurking foes. They therefore invested the en-
trance to the neck, and began to build a fort, with the thought
of starving out the foe ; but Philip and his warriors wafted
themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of
night, leaving the women and children behind ; and escaped

PHILIP OF POKANOEET. 227

away to the westward, kindling the flames of war among the
tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmnck country, and threat-
ening the colony -of Connecticut.

In this way Philip became a theme of universal apprehen-
sion. The mystery in which he was enveloped exaggerated
his real terrors. He was an evil that walked in darkness ; whose
coming none could foresee, and against which none knew
when to be on the alert. The whole country abounded with
rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubiq-
uity ; for, in whatever part of the widely extended frontier
an irruption from the forest took place, Philip was said to be
its leader. Many superstitious notions also were circulated
concerning him. He was said to deal in necromancy, and to
be attended by an old Indian witch or prophetess, whom he
consulted, and who assisted him by her charms and incanta-
tions. This indeed was frequently the case with Indian chiefs ;
either through their own credulit}', or to act upon that of their
followers : and the influence of the prophet and the dreamer
over Indian superstition has been fully evidenced in recent
instances of savage warfare.

At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset,
his fortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had
been thinned by repeated fights, and he had lost almost the
whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a
faithful friend in Canonchet, Chief Sachem of all the Narra-
gansets. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great
Sachem, who, as already mentioned, after an honorable ac-
quital of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put to
death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. "• He was
the heir," says the old chronicler, " of all his father's pride and
insolence, as well as of his malice towards the English;" he
certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, and the
legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to
take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he received Philip
and his broken forces with open arms ; and gave them the
most generous countenance and support. This at once drew
upon him the hostility of the English ; and it was determined
to strike a signal blow, that should involve both the Sachems
in one common ruin. A great force was, therefore, gathered
together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, and
was sent into the Narraganset country in the depth of winter,
when the swamps, being frozen and leafless, could be traversed
with comparative facility, and would no longer afford dark and
impenetrable fastnesses to the Indians.

228 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the greater
part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, the women
and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress ; where he and
Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their forces. This
fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated
upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, in
the midst of a swamp ; it was constructed with a degree of
judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually displayed
in Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial genius of
these two chieftains.

Guided by a renegade Indian, the English penetrated, through
December snows, to this stronghold, and came upon the garri-
son by surprise. The fight was fierce and tumultuous. The
assailants were repulsed in their first attack, and several of
their bravest officers were shot down in the act of storming the
fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed with greater
success. A lodgement was effected. The Indians were driven
from one post to another. They disputed their ground inch by
inch, fighting with the fury of despair. Most of their veterans
were cut to pieces ; and after a long and bloody battle, Philip
and Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, retreated
from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets of the surround-
ing forest.

The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole
was soon in a blaze ; many of the old men, the women and the
children, perished in the flames. This last outrage overcame
even the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods re-
sounded with the yells of rage and despair, uttered by the fugi-
tive warriors as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings,
and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and offspring.
"The burning of the wigwams," says a contemporary writer,
" the shrieks and cries of the women and children, and the yell-
ing of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and affecting
scene, so that it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The
same writer cautiously adds, " they were in much doubt then,
and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burning their ene-
mies alive could be consistent with humanity, and the benevo-
lent principles of the gospel." 1

The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is worthy of
particular mention : the last scene of his life is one of the
noblest instances on record of Indian magnanimity.

Broken down in his power and resources by this signal de-

i MS. of the Rev. W. Ruggles.

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 229

feat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hapless cause which he
had espoused, he rejected all overtures of peace, offered on con-
dition of betiding Philip and his followers, and declared that
" he would fight it out to the last man, rather than become a
servant to the English.'* His home being destroyed ; his coun-
try harassed and laid waste by the incursions of the conquerors ;
he was obliged to wander away to the banks of the Connecti-
cut ; where he formed a rallying point to the whole body of
western Indians, and laid waste several of the English settle-
ments.

Early in the spring, he departed on a hazardous expedition,
with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate to Seaconck, in the
vicinity of Mount Hope, and to procure seed-corn to plant for
the sustenance of his troops. This little band of adventurers
had passed safely through the Pequod country, and were in the
centre of the Narraganset, resting at some wigwams near Paw-
tucket river, when an alarm was given of an approaching
enemy. Having but seven men by him at the time, Canonchet
despatched two of them to the top of a neighboring hill, to
bring intelligence of the foe.

Panic-struck by .the appearance of a troop of English and
Indians rapidly advancing, they fled in breathless terror past
their chieftain, without stopping to inform him of the danger.
Canonchet sent another scout, wrho did the same. He then
sent two more, one of whom, hurrying back in confusion and
affright, told him that the whole British army was at hand.
Canonchet saw there was no choice but immediate flight. He
attempted to escape round the hill, but was perceived and hotly
pursued by the hostile Indians, and a few of the fleetest of the
English. Finding the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he
threw off, first his blanket, then his silver-laced coat and belt
of peag, by which his enemies knew him to be Canonchet, and
redoubled the eagerness of pursuit.

At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped upon
a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This accident
so struck him with despair, that, as he afterwards confessed,
" his heart and his bowels turned within him, and he became
like a rotten stick, void of strength."

To such a degree was he unnerved, that, being seized by a
Pequod Indian within a short distance of the river, he made no
resistance, though a man of great vigor of body and boldness
of heart. But on being made prisoner, the whole pride of his
spirit arose within him ; and from that moment, we find, in the
anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated flashes

230 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Df elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned by one
of the English who first came up with him, and who had not
attained his twenty-second year, the proud-hearted warrior,
looking with lofty contempt upon his youthful countenance, re-
plied, "You are a child — you cannot understand matters of
war — let your brother or your chief come — him will I answer."

Though repeated offers were made to him of his life, on con-
dition of submitting with his nation to the English, yet he
rejected them with disdain, and refused to send any proposals
of the kind to the great body of his subjects ; saying, that he
knew none of them would comply. Being reproached with his
breach of faith towards the whites ; his boast that he would not
deliver up a Wampanoag, nor the parings of a Wampanoag's
nail ; and his threat that he would burn the English alive in
their houses, he disdained to justify himself, haughtily answer-
ing that others were as forward for the war as himself, " and
he desired to hear no more thereof."

So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a fidelity to his cause
and his friend, might have touched the feelings of the generous
and the brave ; but Canonchet was an Indian ; a being towards
whom war had no courtesy, humanity no law, religion no com-
passion — he was condemned to die. The last words of his that
are recorded, are worthy the greatness of his soul. When sen-
tence of death was passed upon him, he observed, "that he
liked it well, for he should die before his heart was soft, or he
had spoken any thing unworthy of himself." His enemies gave
him the death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoningham, by
three young Sachems of his own rank.

The defeat of the Narraganset fortress, and the death of
Canonchet, were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip.
He made an ineffectual attempt to raise a head of war, by stir-
ring up the Mohawks to take arms ; but though possessed of
the native talents of a statesman, his arts were counteracted by
the superior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of
their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of the neigh-
boring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself daily
stripped of power, and his ranks rapidly thinning around him.
Some were suborned by the whites ; others fell victims to hun-
ger and fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which they were
harassed. His stores were all captured ; his chosen friends
were swept away from before his eyes ; his uncle was shot down
by his side ; his sister was carried into captivity ; and in one of
his narrow escapes he was compelled to leave his beloved wife
and only son to the mercy of the enemy. "His ruin," says

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 231

the historian, " being thus gradually carried on, his misery was
not prevented, but augmented thereby ; being himself made ac-
quainted with the sense and experimental feeling of the cap-
tivity of his children, loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects,
bereavement of all family relations, and being stripped of all
outward comforts, before his own life should be taken away."

To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers
began to plot against his life, that by sacrificing him they might
purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery, a number
of his faithful adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian
princess of Pocasset, a near kinswoman and confederate of
Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Wetamoe
was among them at the time, and attempted to make her escape
by crossing a neighboring river : either exhausted by swimming,
or starved by cold and hunger, she wafe found dead and naked
near the water side. But persecution ceased not at the grave :
even death, the refuge of the wretched, where the wicked com-
monly cease from troubling, was no protection to this outcast
female, whose great crime was affectionate fidelity to her kins-
man and her friend. Her corpse was the object of unmanly
and dastardly vengeance ; the head was severed from the body
and set upon a pole, and was thus exposed, at Taunton, to the
view of her captive subjects. They immediately recognized
the features of their unfortunate queen, and were so affected at
this barbarous spectacle, that we are told they broke forth into
the " most horrid and diabolical lamentations."

However Philip had borne up against the complicated mis-
eries and misfortunes that surrounded him, the treachery of his
followers seemed to wring his heart and reduce him to despond-
ency. It is said that " he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had
success in any of his designs." The spring of hope was broken
— the ardor of enterprise was extinguished: he looked around,
and all was danger and darkness ; there was no eye to pity, nor
any arm that could bring deliverance. With a scanty band of
followers, who still remained true to his desperate fortunes, the
unhappy Philip wandered back to the vicinity of Mount Hope,
the ancient dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked about, like
a spectre, among the scenes of former power and prosperity,
now bereft of home, of family, and friend. There needs no
better picture of his destitute and piteous situation, than that
furnished by the homely pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily
enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the hapless war-
rior whom he reviles. " Philip," he saj^s, " like a savage wild
beast, having been hunted by the English forces through the

232 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

woods above a hundred miles backward and forward, at last
was driven to his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired,
with a few of his best friends, into a swamp, which proved but
a prison to keep him fast till the messengers of death came by
divine permission to execute vengeance upon him."

Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, a sullen
grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him to our-
selves seated among his care-worn followers, brooding in silence
over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage sublimity
from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking-place. De-
feated, but not disma}-ed — crushed to the earth,, but not
humiliated — he seemed to grow more haughty beneath disas-
ter, and to experience a fierce satisfaction in draining the last
dregs of bitterness. Little minds are tamed and subdued bjT
misfortune ; but great minds rise above it. The very idea of
submission awakened the fury of Philip, and he smote" to death
one of his followers, who proposed an expedient of peace. The
brother of the victim made his escape, and in revenge betrayed
the retreat of his chieftain. A body of white men and Indians
were immediately despatched to the swamp where Philip lay
crouched, glaring with fury and despair. Before he was aware
of their approach, they had begun to surround him. In a little
while he saw five of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet ;
all resistance was vain ; he rushed forth from his covert, and
made a headlong attempt at escape, but was shot through the
heart by a renegado Indian of his own nation.

Such is the scanty story of the brave, but unfortunate King
Philip ; persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored when
dead. If, however, we consider even the prejudiced anecdotes
furnished us by his enemies, we may perceive in them traces of
amiable and lofty character, sufficient to awaken sympathy for
his fate and respect for his memory. We find, that amidst all
the harassing cares and ferocious passions of constant warfare,
he was alive to the softer feelings of connubial love and
paternal tenderness, and to the generous sentiment of friend-
ship. The captivity of his "beloved wife and only son" is
mentioned with exultation, as causing him poignant misery :
the death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new
blow on his sensibilities ; but the treachery and desertion of
many of his followers, in whose affections he had confided, is
said to have desolated his heart, and to have bereaved him of
all further comfort. He was a patriot, attached to his native
soil — a prince true to his subjects, and indignant of their
wrongs — a soldier, daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient

JOHN BULL. 233

of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and
ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart,
and with an untamable love of natural liberty, he preferred to
enjoy it among the beasts of the forests, or in the dismal and
famished recesses of swamps and morasses, rather than bow
his haughty spirit to submission, and live dependent and de-
spised in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With heroic
qualities and bold achievements that would have graced a
civilized warrior, and have rendered him the theme of the poet
and the historian, he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his
native land, and went down, like a lonely bark, foundering
amid darkness and tempest — without a pitying eye to weep his
fall, or a friendly hand to record his struggle.

JOHN BULL.

An old song, made by an aged old pate,

Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate,

That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,

And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate.

With an old study filled full of learned old books,

With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks,

With an old buttery-hatch worn quite off the hooks,

And an old kitchen that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks.

Like an old courtier, etc. — Old Song.

THERE is no species of humor in which the English more
excel, than that which consists in caricaturing and giving
ludicrous appellations or nicknames. In this way they have
whimsically designated, not merely individuals, but nations ;
and in their fondness for pushing a joke, they have not spared
even themselves. One would think that, in personifying itself,
a nation would be apt to picture something grand, heroic, and
imposing ; but it is characteristic of the peculiar humor of the
English, and of their love for what is blunt, comic, and
familiar, that they have embodied their national oddities in
the figure of a sturdy, corpulent old fellow, with a three-
cornered hat, red waistcoat, leather breeches, and stout oaken
cudgel. Thus they have taken a singular delight in exhibiting
their most private foibles in a laughable point of view ; and
have been so successful in their delineations, that there is

234 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

scarcely a being in actual existence more absolutely present
to the public mind, than that eccentric personage, John Bull.

Perhaps the continual contemplation of the character thus
drawn of them, has contributed to fix it upon the nation ; and
thus to give reality to what at first may have been painted in a
great measure from the imagination. Men are apt to acquire
peculiarities that are continually ascribed to them. The com-
mon orders of English seem wonderfully captivated with the
beau ideal which they have formed of John Bull, and endeavor
to act up to the broad caricature that is perpetually before their
eyes. Unluckily, they sometimes make their boasted Bull-ism
an apology for their prejudice or grossness ; and this I have
especially noticed among those truly homebred and genuine
sons of the soil who have never migrated beyond the sound of
Bow-bells. If one of these should be a little uncouth in speech,
and apt to utter impertinent truths, he confesses that he is a
real John Bull, and always speaks his mind. If he now and
then flies into an unreasonable burst of passion about trifles,
he observes that John Bull is a choleric old blade, but then his
passion is over in a moment, and he bears no malice. If he
betrays a coarseness of taste, and an insensibility to foreign
refinements, he thanks Heaven for his ignorance — he is a plain
John Bull, and has no relish for frippery and knick-knacks. His
very proneuess to be gulled by strangers, and to pay extrava-
gantly for absurdities, is excused under the plea of munificence
— for John is always more generous than wise.

Thus, under the name of John Bull, he will contrive to argue
every fault into a merit, and will frankly convict himself of
being the honestest fellow in existence.

However little, therefore, the character may have suited in
the first instance, it has gradually adapted itself to the nation,
or rather they have adapted themselves to each other ; and a
stranger who wishes to study English peculiarities, may gather
much valuable information from the innumerable portraits of
John Bull, as exhibited in the windows of the caricature-shops.
Still, however, he is one of those fertile humorists, that are
continually throwing out new portraits, and presenting differ-
ent aspects from different points of view ; and, often as he has
been described, I cannot resist the temptation to give a slight
sketch of him, such as he has met my eye.

John Bull, to all appearance, is a plain downright matter-of-
fact fellow, with much less of poetry about him than rich prose.
There is little of romance in his nature, but a vast deal of
strong natural feeling. He excels in humor more than in wit ;

JOHN BULL. 235

is jolly rather than gay ; melancholy rather than morose ; can
easily be moved to a sudden tear, or surprised into a broad
laugh ; but he loathes sentiment, and has no turn for light pleas-
antry. He is a boon companion, if you allow him to have his
humor, and to talk about himself ; and he will stand by a friend
in a quarrel, with life and purse, however soundly he may be
cu,dgelled.

In this last respect, to tell the truth, he has a propensity to
be somewhat too ready. He is a busy-minded personage, who
thinks not merely for himself and family, but for all the country
round, and is most generously disposed to be everybody's cham-
pion. He is continually volunteering his services to settle his
neighbors' affairs, and takes it in great dudgeon if they engage
in any matter of consequence without asking his advice ; though
he seldom engages in any friendly office of the kind without fin-
ishing by getting into a squabble with all parties and then railing
bitterly at their ingratitude. He unluckily took lessons in his
youth in the noble science of defence, and having accomplished
himself in the use of his limbs and his weapons, and become a
perfect master at boxing and cudgel-play, he has had a trouble-
some life of it ever since. He cannot hear of a quarrel between
the most distant of his neighbors, but he begins incontinently to
fumble with the head of his cudgel, and consider whether his
interest or honor does not require that he should meddle in the
broil. Indeed, he has extended his relations of pride and policy
BO completely over the whole country, that no event can take
place, without infringing some of his finely-spun rights and
dignities. Couched in his little domain, with these filaments
stretching forth in every direction, he is like some choleric,
bottle-bellied old spider, who has woven his web over a whole
chamber, so that a fly cannot buzz, nor a breeze blow, without
startling his repose, and causing him to sally forth wrathfully
from his den.

Though really a good-hearted, good-tempered old fellow at
bottom, yet he is singularly fond of being in the midst of con-
tention. It is one of his peculiarities, however, that he only
relishes the beginning of an affray ; he always goes into a fight
with alacrity, but comes out of it grumbling even when victo-
rious ; and though no one fights with more obstinacy to carry
a contested point, yet, when the battle is over, and he comes
to the reconciliation, he is so much taken up with the mere
shaking of hands, that he is apt to let his antagonist pocket
all that they have been quarrelling about. It is not, therefore,
fighting that he ought so much to be on his guard against, as

236 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

making friends. It is difficult to cudgel him out of a farthing 5
but put him in a good humor, and you may bargain him out
of all the money in his pocket. He is like a stout ship, which
will weather the roughest storm uninjured, but roll its masts
overboard in the succeeding calm.

He is a little fond of playing the magnifico abroad ; of pulling
out a long purse ; flinging his monej7 bravely about at boxing-
matches, horse-races, cock-fights, and carrying a high head
among " gentlemen of the fancy ; " but immediately after one
of these fits of extravagance, he will be taken with violent
qualms of economy ; stop short at the most trivial expenditure ;
talk desperately of being ruined and brought upon the parish ;
and in such moods will not pay the smallest tradesman's bill
without violent altercation. He is, in fact, the most punctual
and discontented paymaster in the world ; drawing his coin out
of his breeches pocket with infinite reluctance ; paying to the
uttermost farthing, but accompanying every guinea with a
growl.

With all his talk of economy, however, he is a bountiful
provider, and a hospitable housekeeper. His economy is of a
whimsical kind, its chief object being to devise how he may
afford to be extravagant ; for he will begrudge himself a beef-
steak and pint of port one day, that he may roast an ox whole,
broach a hogshead of ale, and treat all his neighbors on the
next.

His domestic establishment is enormously expensive : not so
much from any great outward parade, as from the great con-
sumption of solid beef and pudding ; the vast number of fol-
lowers he feeds and clothes ; and his singular disposition to pay
hugely for small services. He is a most kind and indulgent
master, and, provided his servants humor his peculiarities, flat-
ter his vanity a little now and then, and do not peculate grossly
on him before his face, they may manage him to perfection.
Every thing that lives on him seems to thrive and grow fat.
His house servants are well paid, and pampered, and have little
to do. His horses are sleek and lazy, and prance slowly before
his state carriage ; and his house-dogs sleep quietly about the
door, and will hardly bark at a housebreaker.

His family mansion is an old castellated manor-house, gray
with age, and of a most venerable, though weather-beaten, ap-
pearance. It has been built upon no regular plan, but is a vast
accumulation of parts, erected in various tastes and ages. The
centre bears evident traces of Saxon architecture, and is as
solid as ponderous stone and old English oak can make it.

JOHN BULL. 237

Like all the relics of that style, it is full of obscure passages,
intricate mazes, and dusky chambers ; and though these have
been partially lighted up in modern days, yet there are many
places where you must still grope in the dark. Additions have
been made to the original edifice from time to time, and great
alterations have taken place ; towers and battlements have
been erected during wars and tumults ; wings built in time of
peace ; and out-houses, lodges, and offices, run up according to
the whim or convenience of different generations, until it has
become one of the most spacious, rambling tenements imagin-
able. An entire wing is taken up with the family chapel ; a
reverend pile, that must have been exceedingly sumptuous,
and, indeed, in spite of having been altered and simplified
at various periods, has still a look of solemn religious pomp.
Its walls within are storied with the monuments of John's
ancestors ; and it is snugly fitted up with soft cushions and
well-lined chairs, where such of his family as are inclined to
church services, may doze comfortably in the discharge of their
duties.

To keep up this chapel, has cost John much money ; but he
is stanch in his religion, and piqued in his zeal, from the cir-
cumstance that many dissenting chapels have been erected in
his vicinity, and several of his neighbors, with whom he has
had quarrels, are strong Papists.

To do the duties of the chapel, he maintains, at a large
expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. He is a most
learned and decorous personage, and a truly well-bred Christian,
who always backs the old gentleman in his opinions, winks
discreetly at his little peccadilloes, rebukes the children when
refractory, and is of great use in exhorting the tenants to read
their Bibles, say their prayers, and, above all, to pay their rents
punctually, and without grumbling.

The family apartments are in a very antiquated taste, some-
what heavy, and often inconvenient, but full of the solemn
magnificence of former times ; fitted up with rich, though faded
tapestry, unwieldy furniture, and loads of massy, gorgeous old
plate. The vast fireplaces, ample kitchens, extensive cellars,
and sumptuous banqueting halls, — all speak of the roaring hos-
pitality of days of yore, of which the modern festivity at the
manor-house is but a shadow. There are, however, complete
suites of rooms apparently deserted and time-worn ; and towers
and turrets that are tottering to decay ; so that in high winds
there is danger of their tumbling about the ears of the house-
hold.

238 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

John has frequently been advised to have the old edifice
thoroughly overhauled, and to have some of the useless parts
pulled down, and the others strengthened with their materials;
but the old gentleman always grows testy on this subject. He
swears the house is an excellent house — that it is tight and
weather-proof, and not to be shaken by tempests — that it has
stood for several hundred years, and therefore, is not likely to
tumble down now — that as to its being inconvenient, his family
is accustomed to the inconveniences, and would not be comfort-
able without them — that as to its unwieldy size and irregular
construction, these result from its being the growth of centuries,
and being improved by the wisdom of every generation — that
an old family, like his. requires a large house to dwell in ; new,
upstart families may live in modern cottages and snug boxes,
but an old English family should inhabit an old English manor-
house. If you point out any part of the building as superfluous,
he insists that it is material to the strength or decoration of the
rest, and the harmony of the whole ; and swears that the parts
are so built into each other ; that, if you pull down one you run
the risk of having the whole about your ears.

The secret of the matter is, that John has a great disposition
to protect and patronize. He thinks it indispensable to the
dignity of an ancient and honorable family, to be bounteous in
its appointments, and to be eaten up by dependants ; arid so,
partly from pride, and partly from kind-heartedness, he makes
it a rule always to give shelter and maintenance to his super-
annuated servants.

The consequence is, that, like many other venerable family
establishments, his manor is encumbered by old retainers whom
he cannot turn off, and an old style which he cannot lay down.
His mansion is like a great hospital of invalids, and, with all its
magnitude, is not a whit too large for its inhabitants. Not a
nook or corner but is of use in housing some useless personage.
Groups of veteran beef-eaters, gouty pensioners, and retired
heroes of the buttery and the larder, are seen lolling about its
walls, crawling over its lawns, dozing under its trees, or sunning
themselves upon the benches at its doors. Every office and
out-house is garrisoned by these supernumeraries and their
families ; for they are amazingly prolific, and when they die off,
are sure to leave John a legacy of hungry mouths to be provided
for. A mattock cannot be struck against the most mouldering
tumble-down tower, but out pops, from some cranny, or loop-
hole, the gray pate of some superannuated hanger-on, who has
lived at John's expense all his life, and makes the most grievous

JOHN BULL. 239

outcry, at their pulling down the roof from over the head of a
worn-out servant of the family. This is an appeal that John's
honest heart never can withstand ; so that a man who has faith-
fully eaten his beef and pudding all his life, is sure to be
rewarded with a pipe and tankard in his old days.

A great part of his park, also, is turned into paddocks, where
his broken-down chargers are turned loose to graze undisturbed
for the remainder of their existence — a worthy example of
grateful recollection, which if some of his neighbors were to
imitate, would not be to their discredit. Indeed, it is one of his
great pleasures to point out these old steeds to his visitors, to
dwell on their good qualities, extol their past services, and
boast, with some little vainglory, of the perilous adventures
and hardy exploits through which they have carried him.

He is given, however, to indulge his veneration for family
usages, and family encumbrances, to a whimsical extent. His
manor is infested by gangs of gypsies ; yet he will not suffer
them to be driven off, because they have infested the place time
out of mind, and been regular poachers upon every generation
of the family. He will scarcely permit a dry branch to be
lopped from the great trees that surround the house, lest it
should molest the rooks, that have bred there for centuries.
Owls have taken possession of the dove-cote, but the}T are hered-
itary owls, and must not be disturbed. Swallows have nearly
choked up every chimney with their nests ; martins build in
every frieze and cornice ; crows nutter about the towers, and
perch on every weathercock ; and old gray-headed rats may be
seen in every quarter of the house, running in and out of their
holes undauntedly in broad daylight. In short, John has such
a reverence for every thing that has been long in the family,
that he will not hear even of abuses being reformed, because
they are good old family abuses.

All these whims and habits have concurred wofully to drain
the old gentleman's purse ; and as he prides himself on punctu-
ality in money matters, and wishes to maintain his credit in
the neighborhood, they have caused him great perplexity in
meeting his engagements. This, too, has been increased by
the altercations and heartburnings which are continually taking
place in his family. His children have been brought up to dif-
ferent callings, and are of different ways of thinking ; and as
they have always been allowed to speak their minds freely, they
do not fail to exercise the privilege most clamorously in the
present posture of his affairs. Some stand up for the honor
of the race, and are clear that the old establishment should be

240 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

kept up in all its state, whatever may be the cost; others, who
are more prudent and considerate, entreat the old gentleman
to retrench his expenses, and to put his whole system of house-
keeping on a more moderate footing. He has, indeed, at times,
seemed inclined to listen to their opinions, but their wholesome
advice has been completely defeated by the obstreperous con-
duct of one of his sons. This is a noisy rattle-pated fellow,
of rather low habits, who neglects his business to frequent ale-
houses — is the orator of village clubs, and a complete oracle
among the poorest of his father's tenants. No sooner does he
hear any of his brothers mention reform or retrenchment, than
up he jumps, takes the words out of their mouths, and roars
out for an overturn. When his tongue is once going, nothing
can stop it. He rants about the room ; hectors the old man
about his spendthrift practices ; ridicules his tastes and pur-
suits ; insists that he shall turn the old servants out of doors ;
give the broken-down horses to the hounds ; send the fat chap-
lain packing and take a field-preacher in his place — nay, that
the whole family mansion shall be levelled with the ground,
and a plain one of brick and mortar built in its place. He rails
at every social entertainment and family festivity, and skulks
away growling to the ale-house whenever an equipage drives up
to the door. Though constantly complaining of the emptiness
of his purse, yet he scruples not to spend all his pocket-money
in these tavern convocations, and even runs up scores for the
liquor over which he preaches about his father's extravagance.

It may readily be imagined how little such thwarting agrees
with the old cavalier's fiery temperament. He has become so
irritable, from repeated crossings, that the mere mention of
retrenchment or reform is a signal for a brawl between him and
the tavern oracle. As the latter is too sturdy and refractory
for paternal discipline, having grown out of all fear of the
cudgel, they have frequent scenes of wordy warfare, which at
times run so high, that John is fain to call in the aid of his son
Tom, an officer who has served abroad, but is at present living
at home, on half-pay. This last is sure to stand by the old
gentleman, right or wrong ; likes nothing so much as a racket-
ing roystering life ; and is ready, at a wink or nod, to out sabre,
and flourish it over the orator's head, if he dares to array him-
self against paternal authority.

These family dissensions, as usual, have got abroad, and are
rare food for scandal in John's neighborhood. People begin
to look wise, and shake their heads, whenever his affairs are
mentioned. They all " hope that matters are not so bad with

JOHN BULL. 241

him as represented ; but when a man's own children begin to
rail at his extravagance, things must be badly managed. They
understand he is mortgaged over head and ears, and is contin-
ually dabbling with money-lenders. He is certainly an open-
handed old gentleman, but they fear he has lived too fast ;
indeed, • they never knew any good come of this fondness for
hunting, racing, revelling, and prize-fighting. In short, Mr.
Bull's estate is a very fine one, and has been in the family a
long while ; but for all that, they have known many finer es-
tates come to the hammer."

What is worst of all, is the effect which these pecuniary em-
barrassments and domestic feuds have had on the poor man
himself. Instead of that jolly round corporation, and smug
rosy face, which he used to present, he has of late become as
shrivelled and shrunk as a frostbitten apple. His scarlet gold-
laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those prosper-
ous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely
about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather breeches are
all in folds and wrinkles ; and apparently have much ado to
hold up the boots that yawn on both sides of his once sturdy
legs.

Instead of strutting about, as formerly, with his three-cor-
nered hat on one side ; flourishing his cudgel, and bringing it
down every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground ;
looking every one sturdily in the face, and trolling out a stave
of a catch or a drinking song ; he now goes about whistling
thoughtfully to himself, with his head drooping down, his cud-
gel tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the bottom
of his breeches pockets, which are evidently empty.

Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present ; yet for all
this, the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever. If
you drop the least expression of sympathy or concern, he takes
fire in an instant ; swears that he is the richest and stoutest
fellow in the country ; talks of laying out large sums to adorn
his house or buy another estate ; and, with a valiant swagger
and grasping of his cudgel, longs exceedingly to have another
bout at quarterstaff.

Though there may be something rather whimsical in all this,
yet I confess I cannot look upon John's situation without strong
feelings of interest. With all his odd humors and obstinate
prejudices he is a sterling-hearted old blade. He ma}^ not be
so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at
least twice as good as his neighbors represent him. His virtues
are all his own ; all plain, homebred, and unaffected. His very

242 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities. His extrava-
gance savors of his generosity ; his quarrelsomeness, of his
courage ; his credulity, of his open faith ; his vanity, of his
pride ; and his bluntness, of his sincerity. They are all the
redundancies of a rich and liberal character. He is like his own
oak ; rough without, but sound and solid within ; whose bark
abounds with excrescences in proportion to the growth and
grandeur of the timber ; and whose branches make a fearful
groaning and murmuring in the least storm, from their very
magnitude and luxuriance. There is something, too, in the ap-
pearance of his old family mansion, that is extremely poetical
and picturesque ; and, as long as it can be rendered comforta-
bly habitable, I should almost tremble to see it meddled with
during the present conflict of tastes and opinions. Some of
his advisers are no doubt good architects, that might be of
service ; but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they
had once got to work with their mattocks on this venerable
edifice, would never stop until they had brought it to the ground,
and perhaps buried themselves among the ruins. All that I
wish, is, that John's present troubles may teach him more pru-
dence in future ; that he may cease to distress his mind about
other people's affairs ; that he may give up the fruitless attempt
to promote the good of his neighbors, and the peace and happi-
ness of the world, by dint of the cudgel ; that he may remain
quietly at home ; gradually get his house into repair ; cultivate
his rich estate according to his fancy ; husband his income — if
he thinks proper ; bring his unruly children into order — if he
can ; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity ; and long
enjoy, on his paternal lands, a green, an honorable, and a merry
old age.

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE.

May no wolfe howle : no screech-owle stir

A wing about thy sepulchre!

No boysterous winds or stormes come hither,

To starve or wither

Thy soft sweet earth! but, like a spring,
Love keep it ever flourishing. — HERRICK.

IN the course of an excursion through one of the remote
counties of England, I had struck into one of those cross-roads
that lead through the more secluded parts of the country, and

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 243

stopped one afternoon at a village, the situation of which was
beautifully rural and retired. There was an air of primitive
simplicity about its inhabitants, not to be found in the. villages
which lie on the great coach-roads. I determined to pass the
night there, and having taken an early dinner, strolled out to
enjoy the neighboring scenery.

My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon led
me to the church, which stood at a little distance from the vil-
lage. Indeed, it was an object of some curiosity, its old tower
being completely overrun with ivy, so that only here and there
a jutting buttress, an angle of gray wall, or a fantastically
carved ornament, peered through the verdant covering. It was
a lovely evening. The early part of the day had been dark and
showery, but in the afternoon it had cleared up ; and though
sullen clouds still hung overhead, yet there was a broad tract of
golden sky in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed
through the dripping leaves, and lit up all nature with a melan-
choly smile. It seemed like the parting hour of a good Chris-
tian, smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world, and giving,
in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that he will rise
again in glory.

I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, and was
musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on
past scenes, and early friends — on those who were distant, and
those who were dead — and indulging in that kind of melan-
choly fancying, which has in it something sweeter even than
pleasure. Every now and then, the stroke of a bell from the
neighboring tower fell on my ear ; its tones were in unison
with the scene, and instead of jarring, chimed in with my feel-
ings ; and it was some time before I recollected, that it must be
tolling the knell of some new tenant of the tomb.

Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village
green ; it wound slowly along a lane ; was lost, and reappeared
through the breaks of the hedges, until it passed the place
where I was sitting. The pall was supported by young girls,
dressed in white ; and another, about the age of seventeen,
walked before, bearing a chaplet of white flowers : a token that
the deceased was a young and unmarried female. The corpse
was followed by the parents. They were a venerable couple, of
the better order of peasantry. The father seemed to repress
his feelings ; but his fixed eye, contracted brow, and deeply-
furrowed face, showed the struggle that was passing within.
His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud with the convulsive
bursts of a mother's sorrow.

244 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was placed
in the centre aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers, with a pair
of white gloves, were hung over the seat which the deceased
had occupied.

Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the funeral
service ; for who is so fortunate as never to have followed some
one he has loved to the tomb? but when performed over the
remains of innocence and beauty, thus laid low in the bloom of
existence — what can be more affecting? At that simple, but
most solemn consignment of the body to the grave — u Earth to
earth — ashes to ashes — dust to dust ! " the tears of the youth-
ful companions of the deceased flowed unrestrained. The
father still seemed to struggle with his feelings, and to comfort
himself with the assurance, that the dead are blessed which die
in the Lord : but the mother only thought of her child as a
flower of the field, cut down and withered in the midst of its
sweetness: she was like Rachel, "mourning over her children,
and would not be comforted."

On returning to the inn, I learnt the whole story of the
deceased. It was a simple one, and such as has often been
told. She had been the beauty and pride of the village. Her
father had once been an opulent farmer, but was reduced in
circumstances. This was an only child, and brought up en-
tirely at home, in the simplicity of rural life. She had been
the pupil of the village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little
flock. The good man watched over her education with pater-
nal care ; it was limited, and suitable to the sphere in which
she was to move ; for he only sought to make her an ornament
to her station in life, not to raise her above it. The tender-
ness and indulgence of her parents, and the exemption from
all ordinary occupations, had fostered a natural grace and deli-
cacy of character that accorded with the fragile loveliness of
her form. She appeared like some tender plant of the gar-
den, blooming accidentally amid the hardier natives of the
fields.

The superiority of her charms was felt and acknowledged by
her companions, but without envy ; for it was surpassed by the
unassuming gentleness and winning kindness of her manners.
It might be truly said of her, —

" This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever
Ran on the greensward : nothing she does or seems,
But smacks of something greater than herself;
Too noble for this place."

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 245

The village was one of those sequestered spots, which still
retain some vestiges of old English customs. It had its rural
festivals and holyday pastimes, and still kept up some faint
observance of the once popular ri^es of May. These, indeed,
had been promoted by its present pastor ; who was a lover of
old customs, and one of those simple Christians that think their
mission fulfilled by promoting joy on earth and good-will among
mankind. Under his auspices the May-pole stood from year
to year in the centre of the village green ; on May-day it was
decorated with garlands and streamers ; and a queen or lady of
the May was appointed, as in former times, to preside at the
sports, and distribute the prizes and rewards. The picturesque
situation of the village, and the fancifuluess of its rustic fetes,
would often attract the notice of casual visitors. Among these,
on one May-day, was a young officer, whose regiment had been
recently quartered in the neighborhood. He was charmed with
the native taste that pervaded this village pageant ; but, above
all, with the dawning loveliness of the queen of May. It was
the village favorite, who was crowned with flowers, and blush-
ing and smiling in all the beautiful confusion of girlish diffi-
dence and delight. The artlessness of rural habits enabled
him readily to make her acquaintance ; he gradually won his
way into her intimacy ; and paid his court to her in that unthink-
ing way in which young officers are too apt to trifle with rustic
simplicity.

There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. He
never even talked of love ; but there are modes of making it,
more eloquent than language, and which convey it subtilely and
irresistibly to the heart. The beam of the eye, the tone of
voice, the thousand tendernesses which emanate from every
word, and look, and action — these form the true eloquence of
love, and can always be felt and understood, but never de-
scribed. Can we wonder that they should readily win a heart,
young, guileless, and susceptible ? As to her, she loved almost
unconsciously ; she scarcely inquired what was the growing pas-
sion that was absorbing every thought and feeling, or what were
to be its consequences. She, indeed, looked not to the future.
When present, his looks and words occupied her whole atten-
tion ; when absent, she thought but of what had passed at their
recent interview. She would wander with him through the
green lanes and rural scenes of the vicinity. He taught her
to see new beauties in nature ; he talked in the language of
polite and cultivated life, and breathed into her ear the witch-
eries of romance and poetry.

246 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Perhaps there could not have been a passion, between the
sexes, more pure than this innocent girl's. The gallant figure
of her youthful admirer, and the splendor of his military attire,
might at first have charmed her eye ; but it was not these that
had captivated her heart. Her attachment had something in it
of idolatry ; she looked up to him as to a being of a superior
order. She felt in his society the enthusiasm of a mind natu-
rally delicate and poetical, and now first awakened to a keen
perception of the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinc-
tions of rank and fortune, she thought nothing ; it was the
difference of intellect, of demeanor, of manners, from those
of the rustic society to which she had been accustomed, that
elevated him in her opinion. She would listen to him with
charmed ear and downcast look of mute delight, and her cheek
would mantle with enthusiasm : or if ever she ventured a shy
glance of timid admiration, it was as quickly withdrawn, and
she would, sigh and blush at the idea of her comparative un-
worthiness.

Her lover was equally impassioned ; but his passion was
mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the
connection in levity ; for he had often heard his brother officers
boast of their village conquests, and thought some triumph of
the kind necessary to his reputation as a man of spirit. But
he was too full of youthful fervor. His heart had not yet been
rendered sufficiently cold and selfish by a wandering and a dis-
sipated life : it caught fire from the very flame it sought to
kindle ; and before he was aware of the nature of his situation,
he became really in love.

What was he to do ? There were the old obstacles which so
incessantly occur in these heedless attachments. His rank in
life — the prejudices of titled connections — his dependence
upon a proud and unyielding father — all forbade him to think
of matrimony : — but when he looked down upon this innocent
being, so tender and confiding, there was a purity in her man-
ners, a blamelessness in her life, and a beseeching modesty in
her looks, that awed down every licentious feeling. In vain
did he try to fortify himself, by a thousand heartless examples
of men of fashion, and to chill the glow of generous sentiment,
with that cold derisive levity with which he had heard them talk
of female virtue ; whenever he came into her presence, she was
still surrounded by that mysterious, but impassive charm of
virgin purity, in whose hallowed sphere no guilty thought can
live.

The ^uddeu arrival of orders for the regiment to repair to

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 247

the continent, completed the confusion of his mind. He re-
mained for a short time in a state of the most painful irresolu-
tion ; he hesitated to communicate the tidings, until the day
for marching was at hand; when he gave her the intelligence
in the course of an evening ramble.

The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It
broke in at once upon her dream of felicity ; she looked upon
it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, and wept with the guile-
less simplicity of a child. He drew her to his bosom and kissed
the tears from her soft cheek, nor did he meet with a repulse,
for there are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which
hallow the caresses of affection. He was naturally impetuous,
and the sight of beauty apparently yielding in his arms, the
confidence of his power over her, and the dread of losing her
forever, all conspired to overwhelm his better feelings — he
ventured to propose that she should leave her home, and be the
companion of his fortunes.

He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and faltered
at his own baseness ; but, so innocent of mind was his intended
victim, that she was at first at a loss to comprehend his mean-
ing; — and why she should leave her native village, and the
humble roof of her parents. When at last the nature of his
proposals flashed upon her pure mind, the effect was wither-
ing. She did not weep — she did not break forth into re-
proaches — she said not a word — but she shrunk back aghast
as from a viper, gave him a look of anguish that pierced to his
very soul, and clasping her hands in agony, fled, as if for refuge,
to her father's cottage.

The officer retired, confounded, humiliated, and repentant.
It is uncertain what might have been the result of the conflict
of his feelings, had not his thoughts been diverted by the
bustle of departure. New scenes, new pleasures, and new
companions, soon dissipated his self-reproach, and stifled his
tenderness. Yet, amidst the stir of camps, the revelries of
garrisons, the array of armies, and even the din of battles, his
thoughts would sometimes steal back to the scenes of rural
quiet and village simplicity — the white cottage — the footpath
along the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the
little village maid loitering along it, leaning on his arm and
listening to him with eyes beaming with unconscious affection.

The shock which the poor girl had received, in the destruc-
tion of all her ideal world, had indeed been cruel. Paintings
and hysterics had at first shaken her tender frame, and were
succeeded by a settled and pining melancholy. She had beheld

248 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

from her window the march of the departing troops. She had
seen her faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph, amidst the
sound of drum and trumpet, and the pomp of arms. She
strained a last aching gaze after him, as the morning sun glit-
tered about his figure, and his plume waved in the breeze ; he
passed away like a bright vision from her sight, and left her all
in darkness.

It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after-
story. It was like other tales of love, melancholy. She avoided
society, and wandered out alone in the walks she had most
frequented with her lover. She sought, like the stricken deer,
to weep in silence and loneliness, and brood over the barbed
sorrow that rankled in her soul. Sometimes she would be seen
late of an evening sitting in the porch of a village church ;
and the milk-maids, returning from the fields, would now and
then overbear her, singing some plaintive ditty in the haw-
thorn walk. She became fervent in her devotions at church ;
and as the old people saw her approach, so wasted away, yet
with a hectic bloom, and that hallowed air which melancholy
diffuses round the form, they would make way for her, as for
something spiritual, and, looking after her, would shake their
heads in gloomy foreboding.

She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb, but
looked forward to it as a place of rest. The silver cord that
had bound her to existence was loosed, and there seemed to be
no more pleasure under the sun. If ever her gentle bosom had
entertained resentment against her lover, it was extinguished.
She was incapable of angry passions, and in a moment of sad-
dened tenderness she penned him a farewell letter. It was
couched in the simplest language, but touching from its very
simplicity. She told him that she was dying, and did not
conceal from him that his conduct was the cause. She even
depicted the sufferings which she had experienced ; but con-
cluded with saying, that she could not die in peace, until she
had sent him her forgiveness and her blessing.

By degrees her strength declined, and she could no longer
leave the cottage. She could only totter to the window, where,
propped up in her chair, it was her enjoyment to sit all day
and look out upon the landscape. Still she uttered no com-
plaint, nor imparted to any one the malady that was preying
on her heart. She never even mentioned her lover's name ;
but would lay her head on her mother's bosom and weep in
silence. Her poor parents hung, in mute anxiety, over this
fading blossom of their hopes, still flattering themselves that it

THE PRIUE OF THE VILLAGE. 249

might again revive to freshness, and that the bright unearthly
bloom which sometimes flushed her cheek, might be the promise
of returning health.

In this way she was seated between them one Sunday after-
noon ; her hands were clasped in theirs, the lattice was thrown
open, and the soft air that stole in, brought with it the fra-
grance of the clustering honeysuckle, which her own hands
had trained round the window.

Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible ; it
spoke of the vanity of worldly things, and of the joys of heaven ;
it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity through her
bosom. Her eye was fixed on the distant village church — the
bell had tolled for the evening service — the last villager was
lagging into the porch — and every thing had sunk into that
hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents
were gazing on her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sor-
row, which pass so roughly over some faces, had given to hers
the expression of a seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft
blue eye. — Was she thinking of her faithless lover? — or were
her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose
bosom she might soon be gathered ?

Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard — a horseman galloped
to the cottage — he dismounted before the window — the poor
girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk back in her chair : — it
was her repentant lover ! He rushed into the house, and flew
to clasp her to his bosom ; but her wasted form — her death-like
countenance — so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation — smote
him to the soul, and he threw himself in agony at her feet.
She was too faint to rise — she attempted to extend her trem-
bling hand — her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was
articulated — she looked down upon him with a smile of unut-
terable tenderness, and closed her eyes forever.

Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village
story. They are but scanty, and I am conscious have little
novelty to recommend them. In the present rage also for
strange incident and high-seasoned narrative, they may appear
trite and insignificant, but they interested me strongly at the
time ; and, taken in connection with the affecting ceremony
which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on my
mind than many circumstances of a more striking nature. I
have passed through the place since, and visited the church
again from a better motive than mere curiosity. It was a
wintry evening ; the trees were stripped of their foliage ; the
churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled

I

250 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been
planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were
bent over it to keep the turf uninjured. The church-door was
open, and I stepped in. — There hung the chaplet of flowers
and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral : the flowers were
withered, it is true, but care seemed to have been taken that no
dust should soil their whiteness. I have seen many monuments,
where art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy
of the spectator ; but I have met with none that spoke more
touchingly to my heart, than this simple, but delicate memento
of departed innocence.

THE ANGLER.

This day dame Nature seemed in love,

The lusty sap began to move,

Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines,

And birds had drawn their valentines.

The jealous trout that low did lie,

Rose at a well dissembled fly.

There stood my friend, with patient skill,

Attending of his trembling quill. — SIB II. WOTTON.

IT is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced to run
away from his family, and betake himself to a seafaring life,
from reading the history of Robinson Crusoe ; and I suspect
that, in like manner, many of those worthy gentlemen, who
are given to haunt the sides of pastoral streams with angle-
rods in hand, may trace the origin of their passion to the seduc-
tive pages of honest Izaak Walton. I recollect studying his
"Complete Angler" several years since, in company with a
knot of friends in America, and, moreover, that we were all
completely bitten with the angling mania. It was early in the
year ; but as soon as the weather was auspicious, and that
the spring began to melt into the verge of summer, we took rod
in hand, and sallied into the country, as stark mad as was ever
Don Quixote from reading books of chivalry.

One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness of his
equipments ; being attired cap-a-pie for the enterprise. He
wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, perplexed with half a hun-
dred pockets ; a pair of stout shoes, and leathern gaiters ; a
basket slung on one side for fish ; a patent rod ; a landing net,
and a score of other inconveniences only to be found in the

THE ANGLER. 251

true angler's armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he was as
great a matter of stare and wonderment among the country
folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel-clad
hero of La Mancha among the goat-herds of the Sierra Morena.

Our first essay was along a mountain brook, among the
highlands of the Hudson — a most unfortunate place for the
execution of those piscatory tactics which had been invented
along the velvet margins of quiet English rivulets. It was one
of those wild streams that lavish, among our romantic soli-
tudes, unheeded beauties, enough to fill the sketch-book of a
hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down
rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees
threw their broad balancing sprays ; and long nameless weeds
hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping with dia-
mond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and fret along a ravine
in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with murmurs ; and
after this termagant career, would steal forth into open day
with the most placid demure face imaginable ; as I have seen
some pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with
uproar and ill-humor, come dimpling out of doors, swimming,
and courtesying, and smiling upon all the world.

How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such times,
through some bosom of green meadow land, among the moun-
tains ; where the quiet was only interrupted by the occasional
tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle among the clover, or the
sound of a wood-cutter's axe from the neighboring forest !

For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport
that required either patience or adroitness, and had not angled
above half an hour, before I had completely " satisfied the sen-
timent," and convinced myself of the truth of Izaak Walton's
opinion, that angling is something like poetry — a man must be
born to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish ; tangled my
line in every tree ; lost my bait ; broke my rod ; until I gave up
the attempt in despair, and passed the day under the trees,
reading old Izaak : satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of
honest simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and
not the passion for angling. My companions, however, were
more persevering in their delusion. I have them at this mo-
ment before my eyes, stealing along the border of the brook,
where it lay open to the day, or was merely fringed by shrubs
and bushes. I see the bittern rising with hollow scream, as
they break in upon his rarely-invaded haunt ; the kingfisher
watching them suspiciously from his dry tree that overhangs
the deep black mill-pond, in the gorge of the hills ; the tortoise

252 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

letting himself slip sideways from off the stone or log on which
he is sunning himself ; and the panic-struck frog plumping
in headlong as they approach, and spreading an alarm through-
out the watery world around.

I recollect, also, that, after toiling and watching and creep-
ing about for the greater part of a day, with scarcely any suc-
cess, in spite of all our admirable apparatus, a lubberly country
urchin came down from the hills, with a rod made from a
branch of a tree ; a few yards of twine ; and, as heaven shall
help me ! I believe a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a vile
earth-worm — and in half an hour caught more fish than we had
nibbles throughout the day.

But above all, I recollect the " good, honest, wholesome,
hungiy " repast, which we made under a beech-tree just by a
spring of pure sweet water, that stole out of the side of a hill ;
and how, when it was over, one of the party read old Izaak
Walton's scene with the milkmaid, while I lay on the grass
and built 'castles in a bright pile of clouds, until I fell asleep.
All this may appear like mere egotism : yet I cannot refrain
from uttering these recollections which are passing like a strain
of music over my mind, and have been called up by an agree-
able scene which I witnessed not long since.

In a morning's stroll along the banks of the Alun, a beauti-
ful little stream which flows down from the Welsh hills and
throws itself into the Dee, my attention was attracted to a
group seated on the margin. On approaching, I found it to
consist of a veteran angler and two rustic disciples. The
former was an old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes very
much, but very carefully patched, betokening poverty, honestly
come by, and decently maintained. His face bore the marks
of former storms, but present fair weather ; its furrows had
been worn into an habitual smile ; his iron-gray locks hung
about his ears, and he had altogether the good-humored air of
a constitutional philosopher, who was disposed to take the
world as it went. One of his companions was a ragged wight,
with the skulking look of an arrant poacher, and I'll warrant
could find his way to any gentleman's fish-pond in the neigh-
borhood in the darkest night. The other was a tall, awkward,
country lad, with a lounging gait, and apparently somewhat of
a rustic beau. The old man was busy examining the maw of
a trout which he had just killed, to discover by its contents
what insects were seasonable for bait ; and was lecturing on the
subject to his companions, who appeared to listen with infinite
deference. I have a kind feeling toward all '* brothers of

THE ANGLER. 253

the angle," ever since I read Izaak Walton. They are men,
he affirms, of a " mild, sweet, and peaceable spirit ; " and my
esteem for them has been increased since I met with an old
" Tretyse of fishing with the Angle," in which are set forth
many of the maxims of their inoffensive fraternity. "Take
goode hecle," sayeth this honest little tretyse, "that in going
about your disportes ye open no man's gates, but that ye shet
them again. Also ye shall not use this forsayd crafti disport for
no covetousness to the increasing and sparing of your money
only, but principally for your solace and to cause the helth of
your body and specyally of your soule." l

I thought that I could perceive in the veteran angler before
me an exemplification of what I had read ; and there was a
cheerful contentedness in his looks, that quite drew me towards
him. I could not but remark the gallant manner in which he
stumped from one part of the brook to another ; waving his
rod in the air, to keep the line from dragging on the ground, or
catching among the bushes ; and the adroitness with which he
would throw his fly to any particular place ; sometimes skim-
ming it lightly along a little rapid ; sometimes casting it into
one of those dark holes made by a twisted root or overhanging
bank, in which the large trout are apt to lurk. In the mean-
while, he was giving instructions to his two disciples ; showing
them the manner in which they should handle their rods, fix
their flies, and play them along the surface of the stream. The
scene brought to my mind the instructions of the sage Piscator
to his scholar. The country around was of that pastoral kind
which Walton is fond of describing. It was a part of the great
plain of Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gessford, and
just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to swell up from
among fresh-smelling meadows. The day, too, like that re-
corded in his work, was mild and sunshiny ; with now and then
a soft dropping shower, that sowed the whole earth with dia-
monds.

I soon fell into conversation with the old angler, and was so
much entertained, that, under pretext of receiving instructions
in his art, I kept company with him almost the whole day ;
wandering along the banks of the stream, and listening to his

1 From this same treatise, it would appear that angling is a more industrious and
devout employment than it is generally considered. " For when ye purpose to go on
your disportes in fishynge, ye will not desyre greatlye many persons with you, which
might let you of your game. And that ye may serve God devoutly in sayinge
effectually your customable prayers. And thus doying, ye shall eschew and also
avoyde many yic*es, as ydleness, which is principall cause to induce man to many other
vices, as it ia right well known."

254 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

talk. He was very communicative, having all the easy garru-
lity of cheerful old age ; and I fancy was a little flattered .by
having an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore ; for who
does not like now and then to play the sage ?

He had been much of a rambler in his day ; and had passed
some years of his youth in America, particularly in Savannah,
where he had entered into trade, and had been ruined by the
indiscretion of a partner. He had afterward experienced many
ups and downs in life, until he got into the navy, where his leg-
was carried .away by a cannon-ball, at the battle of Camper-
down. This was the only stroke of real good fortune he had
ever experienced, for it got him a pension, which, together with
some small paternal property, brought him in a revenue of
nearly fort}* pounds. On this he retired to his native village,
where he lived quietly and independently, and devoted the
remainder of his life to the " noble art of angling."

I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, and he
seemed to have imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent
good-humor. Though he had been sorely buffeted about the
world, he was satisfied that the world, in itself, was good and
beautiful. Though he had been as roughly used in different
countries as a poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge and
thicket, yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kindness,
appearing to look only on the good side of things : and above
all, he was almost the only man I had ever met with, who had
been an unfortunate adventurer in America, and had honesty
and magnanimity enough to take the fault to his own door, and
not to curse the country.

The lad that was receiving his instructions I learnt was the
son and heir apparent of a fat old widow, who kept the village
inn, and of course a youth of some expectation, and much
courted by the idle, gentleman-like personages of the place. In
taking him under his care, therefore, the old man had probably
an eye to a privileged corner in the tap-room, and an occasional
cup of cheerful ale free of expense.

There is certainly something in angling, if we could forget,
which anglers are apt to do, the cruelties and tortures inflicted
on worms and insects, that tends to produce a gentleness of
spirit, and a pure serenity of mind. As the English are me-
thodical even in their recreations, and are the most scientific of
sportsmen, it has been reduced among them to perfect rule and
system. Indeed, it is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the
mild and highly cultivated scenery of England, where every
roughness has been softened away from the landscape. It is de-

THE ANGLER. 255

lightf ill to saunter along those limpid streams which wander, like
veins of silver, through the bosom of this beautiful country ; lead-
ing one through a diversity of small home scenery ; sometimes
winding through ornamented grounds ; sometimes brimming along
through rich pasturage, where the fresh green is mingled with
sweet-smelling flowers, sometimes venturing in sight of villages
and hamlets ; and then running capriciously away into shady
retirements. The sweetness and serenity of nature, and the;
quiet watchfulness of the sport, gradually bring on pleasant fitw
of musing ; which are now and then agreeably interrupted by
the song of a bird ; the distant whistle of the peasant ; or per-
haps the vagary of some fish, leaping out of the still water,
and skimming transiently about its glassj- surface. "When I
would beget content," says Izaak Walton, " and increase con-
fidence in the power and wisdom and providence of Almighty
Go,d, I will walk the meadows b}7 some gliding stream, and
there contemplate the lilies that take no care, and those very
many other little living creatures that are not only created, but
fed, (man knows not how) by the goodness of the God of
nature, and therefore trust in him."

I cannot forbear to give another quotation from one of those
ancient champions of angling, which breathes the same innocent
and happy spirit :

Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink

Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place :
Where I may see my quill, or cork down sink,

With eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace;
And on the world and my Creator think :

While some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace;
And others spend their time in base excess

Of wine, or worse, in war or wantonness.

Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue

And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill,
So I the fields and meadows green may view,

And daily by fresh rivers walk at will
Among the daisies and the violets blue,

Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil.1

On parting with the old angler, I inquired after his place of
abode, and happening to be in the neighborhood of the village
a few evenings afterwards, I had the curiosity to seek him out.
I found him living in a small cottage, containing only one

1 J. Davors.

256 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

room, but a perfect curiosity in its method and arrangement.
It was on the skirts of the village, on a green "bank, a little
back from the road, with a small garden in front, stocked with
kitchen-herbs, and adorned with a few flowers. The whole
front of the cottage was overrun with a honeysuckle. On the
top was a ship for a weathercock. The interior was fitted up
in a truly nautical style, his ideas of comfort and convenience
having been acquired on the berth-deck of a man-of-war. A
hammock was slung from the ceiling, which in the day-time was
lashed up so as to take but little room. From the centre of the
chamber hung a model of a ship, of his own workmanship. Two
or three chairs, a table, and a large sea-chest, formed the prin-
cipal movables. About the wall were stuck up naval ballads,
such as Admiral Hosier's Ghost, All in the Downs, and Tom
Bowling, intermingled with pictures of sea-fights, among which
the battle of Camperdown held a distinguished place. The
mantelpiece was decorated with seashells ; over which hung a
quadrant, flanked by two wood-cuts of most bitter-looking
naval commanders. His implements for angling were carefully
disposed on nails and hooks about the room. On a shelf was
arranged his library, containing a work on angling, much worn ;
a Bible covered with canvas ; an odd volume or two of voyages ;
a nautical almanac ; and a book of songs.

His family consisted of a large black cat with one eye, and a
parrot which he had caught and tamed, and educated himself,
in the course of one of his voyages ; and which uttered a variety
of sea phrases, with the hoarse rattling tone of a veteran boat-
swain. The establishment reminded me of that of the renowned
Robinson Crusoe ; it was kept in neat order, every thing being
' ' stowed away ' ' with the regularity of a ship of war ; and he
informed me that he "scoured the deck every morning, and
swept it between meals."

I found him seated on a bench before the door, smoking his
pipe in the soft evening sunshine. His cat was purring soberly
on the threshold, and his parrot describing some strange evolu-
tions in an iron ring, that swung in the centre of his cage. He
had been angling all day, and gave me a histoiy of his sport
with as much minuteness as a general would talk over a cam-
paign ; being particularly animated in relating the manner in
which he had taken a large trout, which had completely tasked
all his skill and wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to
mine hostess of the inn.

How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented old age ;
and to behold a poor fellow, like this, after being tempest-tost

THE ANGLER. 257

through life, safely moored in a snug and quiet harbor in the
evening of his days ! His happiness, however, sprung from
within himself, and was independent of external circumstances ;
for he had that inexhaustible good-nature, which is the most
precious gift of Heaven ; spreading itself like oil over the trou-
bled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable
in the roughest weather.

On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he was a uni-
versal favorite in the village, and the oracle of the tap-room ;
where he delighted the rustics with his songs, and, like Sindbad,
astonished them with his stories of strange lands, and ship-
wrecks, and sea-fights. He was much noticed too by gentlemen
sportsmen of the neighborhood ; had taught several of them the
art of angling j and was a privileged visitor to their kitchens.
The whole tenor of his life was quiet and inoffensive, being
principally passed about the neighboring streams, when the
weather and season were favorable ; and at other times he
employed himself at home, preparing his fishing tackle for the
next campaign, or manufacturing rods, nets, and flies, for his
patrons and pupils among the gentry.

He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays, though he
generally fell asleep during the sermon. He had made it his
particular request that when he died he should be buried in a
green spot, which he could see from his seat in church, and
which he had marked out ever since he was a boy, and had
thought of when far from home on the raging sea, in danger of
being food for the fishes — it was the spot where his father and
mother had been buried.

I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing weary ; but
I could not refrain from drawing the picture of this worthy
" brother of the angle ; " who has made me more than ever in
love with the theory, though I fear I shall never be adroit in
the practice of his art ; and I will conclude this rambling sketch
in the words of honest Izaak Walton, by craving the blessing
of St. Peter's Master upon my reader, u and upon all that are
true lovers of virtue ; and dare trust in his providence ; and be
quiet ; and go a angling."

258 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.
(FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH

KNICKERBOCKER.)

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half -shut eye;

And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

Forever flushing round a summer sky. — Castle of Indolence.

IN the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent
the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of
the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the
Tappan Zee, arid where they always prudently shortened sail,
and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed,
there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is
called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly
known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given
we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the
adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their hus-
bands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be
that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert
to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far
from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little
valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of
the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides
through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose ; and
the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker,
is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform
tranquillity.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-
shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one
side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon-time when
all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of
my own gun, as it broke the sabbath stillness around, and was
prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I
should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world
and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a
troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little
valley.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char-
acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original
Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 259

the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the
Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country.
A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and
to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was
bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of
the settlement ; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet
or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the coun-
try was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is,
the place still continues under the sway of some witching
power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people,
causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given
to all kinds of marvellous beliefs ; are subject to trances and
visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and
voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local
tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions ; stars shoot
and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other
part of the country, and the night-mare, with her whole nine
fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted
region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers
of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a
head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper,
whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some
nameless battle during the revolutionary war, and who is ever
and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom
of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are
not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adja-
cent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no
great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic histori-
ans of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and
collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege, that
the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard,
the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of
his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes
passes along the hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his
being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard
before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition,
which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that
region of shadows ; and the spectre is known at all the country
firesides, by the name of The Headless Horseman of Sleepy
Hollow.

It is remarkable, that the visionary propensity I have men-
tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley,

260 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there
for a time. However wide awake they may have been before
they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time,
to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow
imaginative — to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it
is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there
embosomed in the great State of New- York, that population,
manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of
migration and improvement, which is making such incessant
changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them
unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water,
which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and
bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowty revolving in their
mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current.
Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades
of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find
the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered
bosom .

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of
American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a
worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned,
or, as he expressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the
purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a
native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with
pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth
yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country school-
masters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to
his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow
shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out
of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his
whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small,
and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a
long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched
upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To
see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day,
with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might
have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon
the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

His school-house was a low building of one large room,
rudely constructed of logs ; the windows partly glazed, and
partly patched with leaves of old copy-books. It was most in-
geniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the
handle of the door, and stakes set against the window-shutters ;

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 261

so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would
find some embarrassment in getting out : — an idea most proba-
bly borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the
mystery of an eelpot. The school-house stood in a rather
lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill,
with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch-tree
growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his
pupil's voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in
a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive ; interrupted
now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the
tone of menace or command ; or, peradventure, by the appall-
ing sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along
the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a con-
scientious man, that and bore in mind the golden maxim,
"spare the rod and spoil the child." — Ichabod Crane's scholars
certainly were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of
those cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of
their subjects ; on the contrary, he administered justice with
discrimination rather than severity ; taking the burthen off the
backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your
mere puny stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod,
was passed by with indulgence ; but the claims of justice were
satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little, tough,
wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and
swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All
this he called " doing his duty by their parents ; " and he never
inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance,
so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that " he would remem-
ber it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live."

When school hours were over, he was even the companion
and playmate of the larger boys ; and on holiday afternoons
would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened
to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted
for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to
keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from
his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient
to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and
though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda ; but to
help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom
in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers,
whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively,
a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood,
with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.

262 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a
grievous burthen, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had
various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.
He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of
their farms ; helped to make hay ; mended the fences ; took
the horses to water ; drove the cows from pasture ; and cut
wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant
dignity and absolute swa}', with which he lorded it in his little
empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingrati-
ating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting
the children, particularly the youngest ; and like the lion bold,
which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would
sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for
whole hours together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master
of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by
instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of
no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front
of the church gallery, with a baud of chosen singers ; where, in
his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the
parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest
of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be
heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile
off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday
morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the
nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in
that ingenious way which is commonly denominated " by hook
and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough,
and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of
head-work, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in
the female circle of a rural neighborhood ; being considered a
kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste
and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, in-
deed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance,
therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a
farm-house, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes
or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot.
Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles
of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them
in the churchyard, between services on Sundays! gathering
grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surround-
ing trees ; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 263

tombstones ; or sauntering with a whole bevy of them, along
the banks of the adjacent mill-pond : while the more bashful
country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior
elegance and address.

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house
to house ; so that his appearance was always greeted with satis-
faction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man
of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through,
and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New-
England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and
potently believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and
simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his
powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary ; and both
had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region.
No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow.
It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, border-
ing the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and
there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering
dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist before his
eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream
and awful woodland, to the farm-house where he happened to
be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour,
fluttered his excited imagination ; the moan of the whip-poor-
will * from the hill-side ; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that
harbinger of storm ; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl ; or
the sudden rustling in the thicket, of birds frightened from
their roosjt. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in
the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of un-
common brightness would stream across his path ; and if, by
chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blunder-
ing flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the
ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token.
His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought,
or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes ; — and the
good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of
an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing his nasal
melody, " in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from
the distant hill, or along the dusky road.

1 The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. It receives its name
from its note, which is thought to resemble those words.

264 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long
winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning
by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along
the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts, and
goblins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and haunted
bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless
horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they some-
times called him. He would delight them equally by his anec-
dotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous
sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier
times of Connecticut ; and would frighten them wofully with
speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the
alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and
that they were half the time topsy-turvy !

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling
in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy
glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no
spectre dared to show his face, it was dearly purchased by the
terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful
shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly
glare of a snowy night ! — With what wistful look did he eye
every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields
from some distant window ! — How often was he appalled by
some shrub covered with snow, which like a sheeted spectre
beset his very path ! — How often did he shrink with curdling
awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath
his feet ; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should
behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! — and
how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rush-
ing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the
galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings !

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms
of the mind, that walk in darkness : and though he had seen
many spectres .in his time, and been more than once beset by
Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet day-
light put an end to all these evils ; and he would have passed
a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works,
if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more
perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the whole
race of witches put together; and that was — a woman.

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening
in each week to receive his instructions in psalmod}', was
Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substan-
tial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen ;

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 265

plump as a partridge ; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as
one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely
for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a
little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress,
which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most
suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure
yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had brought
over from Saardam ; the tempting stomacher of the olden time,
and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest
foot and ankle in the country round.

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex ;
and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon
found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her
in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect
picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He
seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond
the boundaries of his own farm ; but within those, every thing
was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with
his wealth, but not proud of it ; and piqued himself upon the
hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His
stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of
those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farm-
ers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its broad
branches over it ; at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of
the softest and sweetest, water, in a little well, formed of a
barrel ; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a
neighboring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf
willows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might
have served for a church ; every window and crevice of which
seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm ; the flail
was busily resounding within it from morning to night ; swal-
lows and martens skimmed twittering about the eaves ; and rows
of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the
weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in
their bosoms, and others, swelling, and cooing, and bowing
about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof.
Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and
abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and then,
troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squad-
ron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoy-
ing whole fleets of ducks ; regiments of turkeys were gobbling
through the farm-yard, and guinea-fowls fretting about it like
ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry.
Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of

266 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman ; clapping his bur-
nished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his
heart — sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then
generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and chil-
dren to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this
sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring
mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig running
about, with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth ;
the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and
tucked in with a coverlet of crust ; the geese were swimming
in their own gravy ; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like
snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce.
In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon,
and juicy relishing ham ; not a turkey, but he beheld daintily
trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure,
a necklace of savory sausages ; and even bright chanticleer
himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, with uplifted
claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit dis-
dained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled
his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields
of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the or-
chards burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm
tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel
who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination ex-
panded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into
cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land,
and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy
already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming
Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top
of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and
kettles dangling beneath ; and he beheld himself bestriding a
pacing mare, with a colt at her heels 5 setting out for Kentucky,
Tennessee — or the Lord knows where !

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was
complete. It was one of those spacious farm-houses, with high-
ridged, but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down
from the first Dutch settlers. The low projecting eaves form-
ing a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad
weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils
of husbandly, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river.
Benches were built along the sides for summer use ; and a great
spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 267

the various uses to which this important porch might be de-
voted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the
hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the place of
usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a
long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag
of wool, ready to be spun ; in another, a quantity of linsey-
woolsey, just from the loom ; ears of Indian corn, and strings of
dried apples and peaches, Hung in gay festoons along the walls,
mingled with the gaud of red peppers ; and a door left ajar,
gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed
chairs, and dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors ; and-
irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened
from their covert of asparagus tops ; mock-oranges and conch
shells decorated the mantelpiece ; strings of various colored
birds' eggs were suspended above it ; a great ostrich egg was
hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard,
knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver
and well-mended china.

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions
of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and hi*
only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless
daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had
more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-
errant of yore, who seldom had any thing but giants, enchant-
ers, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries,
to contend with ; and had to make his way merely through
gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle-
keep where the lady of his heart was confined ; all which he
achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre
of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a
matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his
way to the heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth
of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new
difficulties and impediments, and he had to encounter a host of
fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic
admirers, who beset every portal to her heart ; keeping a watch-
ful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the
common cause against any new competitor.

Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring,
roystering blade of the name of Abraham, or according to
the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the
country round, which rang with his feats of strength and har-
dihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with
short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant coun-

268 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

tenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From
his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received
the nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally
known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in
horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar.
He was foremost at all races and cock-fights, and with the
ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic life,
was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side,
and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of
no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a
fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in
his composition ; and with all his overbearing roughness there
was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He
had three or four boon companions who regarded him as their
model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country,
attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round.
In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted
with a flaunting fox's tail ; and when the folks at a country
gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking
about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for
a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along
past the farm-houses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like
a troop of Don Cossacks, and the old dames, startled out of
their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had
clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones
and his gang! " The neighbors looked upon him with a mix-
ture of awe, admiration, and good-will ; and when any madcap
prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook
their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the bloom-
ing Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and
though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle
caresses and endearments of a bear, j*et it was whispered that
she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his
advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt
no inclination to cross a lion in his amours ; insomuch, that
when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a
Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as
it is termed, 4t sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in
despair, and carried the war into other quarters.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had
to contend, and considering all things, a stouter man than he
would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would
have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of plia-

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 269

bility and perseverance in his nature ; he was in form and spirit
like a supple-jack — yielding, but tough; though he bent, he
never broke ; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure,
yet the moment it was away — jerk ! — he was as erect, and
carried his head as high as ever.

To have taken the field openly against his rival, would have
been madness ; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his
amours, an}' more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod,
therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently-insinuating
manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he
made frequent visits at the farm-house ; not that he had any
thing to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents,
which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Bait
Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul ; he loved his daughter
better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man. and an ex-
cellent father, let her have her way in every thing. His notable
little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping
and manage her poultry ; for, as she sagely observed, ducks
and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but
girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame
bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end
of the piazza, honest Bait would sit smoking his evening pipe
at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden war-
rior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly
fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the mean
time, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the
side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in
the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and
won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and ad-
miration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door
of access ; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be
captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph
of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of general-
ship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man must battle
for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a
thousand common hearts, is therefore entitled to some renown ;
but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette,
is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the
redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from the moment Ichabod Crane
made his advances, the interests of the former evidently de-
clined : his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on
Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him
and the preceptor of Sleep}- Hollow.

270 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature,
would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled
their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those
most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore
— by single combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the su-
perior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him ;
he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would u double the
schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house ;"
and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was some-
thing extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system ; it left
Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic wag-
gery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes
upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical perse-
cution to Bones, and his gang of rough riders. They harried
his hitherto peaceful domains ; smoked out his singing-school,
by stopping up the chimney ; broke into the school-house at
night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and win-
dow stakes, and turned every thing topsy-turvy ; so that the
poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country
held their meetings there. But what was still more annoying,
Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in pres-
ence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught
to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a
rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody.

In this way, matters went on for some time, without pro-
ducing any material effect on the relative situations of the con-
tending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in
pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usu-
ally watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. Jn
his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power ;
the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, a
constant terror to evil doers ; while on the desk before him
might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weap-
ons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins ; such as half-
munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole
legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there
had been some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for
his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly
whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master ; and
a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school- room.
It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in
tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of
a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a
ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 271

by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school-door
with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making, or
" quilting frolic," to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tas-
sel's ; and having delivered his message with that air of impor-
tance, and effort at fine language, which a negro is apt to
display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the
brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of
the importance and hurry of his mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room.
The scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stop-
ping at trifles ; those who were nimble, skipped over half with
impunity, and those who were tardy, had a smart application
now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed, or help them
over a tall word. Books were flung aside, without being put
away on the shelves ; inkstands were overturned, benches
thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour
before the usual time ; bursting forth like a legion of young
imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their
early emancipation.

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half-hour at
his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only
suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken
looking-glass, that hung up in the school-house. That he
might make his appearance before his mistress in the true
style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with
whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the
name of Hans Van Ripper, and thus gallantly mounted, issued
forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is
meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some
account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed.

The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse,
that had outlived almost every thing but his viciousness. He
was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a
hammer ; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted
with burrs ; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and
spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it.
Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may
judge from his name, which was Gunpowder. He had, in fact,
been a favorite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper,
who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably,
some of his own spirit into the animal ; for, old and broken-
down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him
than in any young filly in the country.

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with

272 TflE SKETCH-BOOK.

short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pom-
mel of the saddle ; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshop-
pers' ; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a
sceptre, and as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms
was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool
hat rested on the top of his. nose, for so his scanty strip of
forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat flut-
tered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance
of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of
Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as
is seldom to be met with in broad daylight.

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day ; the sky was
clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery
which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The
forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some
trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into
brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files
of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air ;
the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of
beech and hickor3*-nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail
at intervals from the neighboring stubble field.

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the
fulness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking,
from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very
profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock-
robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud
querulous note, and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable
clouds ; and the golden winged woodpecker, with his crimson
crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage ; and the
cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow- tipt tail, and its
little monteiro cap of feathers ; and the blue jay, that noisy
coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes,
screaming and chattering, nodding, and bobbing, and bowing,
and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the
grove.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to
every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight
over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld
vast store of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on
the trees ; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the
market ; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press.
Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its
golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out
the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding ; and the 3'ellow

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 273

pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round
bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most
luxurious of pies ; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat
fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive, and as he beheld
them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap-
jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by
the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and
u sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a
range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest
scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled
his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the
Tappaii Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here
and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue
shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated
in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon
was, of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple
green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A
slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that
overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the
dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was
loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide,
her sail hanging uselessly against the mast ; and as the reflec-
tion of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if
the vessel was suspended in the air.

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of
the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride
and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare
leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue
stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their
brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-
waisted short gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and
pin-cushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside.
Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, except-
ing where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock,
gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square-
skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their
hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially
if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being
esteemed throughout the country, as a potent nourisher and
strengthener of the hair.

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having
come to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a
creature, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which

274 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for
preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks which
kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tract-
able well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that
burst upon the enraptured, gaze of my hero, as he entered the
state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy
of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white ;
but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in
the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of
cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only
to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty
dough-nut, the tenderer oly-koek, and the crisp and crumbling
cruller ; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey
cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were
apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies ; besides slices
of ham and smoked beef ; and moreover delectable dishes of
preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces ; not to
mention broiled shad and roasted chickens ; together with bowls
of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much
as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea-pot sending
up its clouds of vapor from the midst — - Heaven bless the
mark ! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it
deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily,
Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but
did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated
in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose
spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He
could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate,
and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be
lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splen-
dor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the
old school-house ; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van
Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itin-
erant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him
comrade !

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a
face dilated with content and good-humor, round and jolly as
the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but
expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on
the shoulder, aloud laugh, and a pressing invitation to "fall
to, and help themselves."

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 275

hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-
headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the
neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument
was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the
time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every
movement of the bow with a motion of the head ; bowing almost
to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh
couple were to start.

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon
his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle ;
and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and
clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus
himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before
you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes ; who,
having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the
neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces
at every door and window ; gazing with delight at the scene ;
rolling their white eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of
ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be
otherwise than animated and joyous? the lady of his heart
was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply
to all his amorous oglings ; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten
with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner.

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a
knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking
at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and
drawling out long stories about the war.

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was
one of those highly favored places which abound with chroni-
cle and great men. The British and American line had run
near it during the war; it had, therefore, been the scene of
marauding, and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds
of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable
each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fic-
tion, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make hire-
self the hero of every exploit.

There was the story pf Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded
Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old
iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun
burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman
who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly
mentioned, who, in the battle of Whiteplains, being an excel-
lent master of defence, parried a musket-ball with a small-
sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade,

276 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

and glance off at the hilt ; in proof of which he was ready at
any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There
were several more that had been equally great in the field, not
one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable
hand in bringing the war to a happ3r termination.

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and appari-
tions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary
treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive
best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats ; but are trampled
under foot, by the shifting throng that forms the population
of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encourage-
ment for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely
had time to finish their first nap. and turn themselves in their
graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from
the neighborhood : so that when they turn out at night to walk
their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This
is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except
in our long-established Dutch communities.

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of super-
natural stones in these parts, was doubtless owing to the
vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very
air that blew from that haunted region ; it breathed forth an
atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Sev-
eral of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's,
and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends.
Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourn-
ing cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree
where the unfortunate Major Andre" was taken, and which
stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of
the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock,
and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm,
having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the
stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy
Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several
times of late, patrolling the country ; and it was said, tethered
his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to
have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands
on a knoll, surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from
among which its decent, whitewashed walls shine modestly
forth, like Christian purity, beaming through the shades of
retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet
of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may
be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 277

grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly,
one would think that there at least the dead might rest in
peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell,
along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and
trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream,
not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge ;
the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly
shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it,
even in the daytime ; but occasioned a fearful darkness at
night. This was one of the favorite haunts of the headless
"horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encoun-
tered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical
disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning from
his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind
him ; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and
swamp, until they reached the bridge ; when the horseman
suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the
brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of
thunder.

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous
adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping
Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed, that on returning
one night from the neighboring village of Sing-Sing, he had
been overtaken by this midnight trooper ; that he had offered to
race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it
too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as
they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and van-
ished in a flash of fire.

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which
men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only
now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a
pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in
kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton
Mather, and added many marvellous events that had taken
place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights
which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered
together their families in their wagons, and were heard for
some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant
hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their
favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with
the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sound-
ing fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away — and
the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted.

278 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of coun-
try lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress ; fully con-
vinced that he was now on the high road to success. What
passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I
do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone
wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great inter-
val, with an air quite desolate and chopfallen — Oh, these
women ! these women ! Could that girl have been playing off
anjT of her coquettish tricks ? — Was her encouragement of the
poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his
rival? — Heaven only knows, not I! — let it suffice to say,
Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a
hen-roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to
the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he
had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with
several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncour-
teously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly
sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole
valleys of timothy and clover.

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-
hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along
the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and
which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour
was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee
spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and
there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under
the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the
barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hud-
son ; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of
his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and
then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally
awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house,
away among the hills — but it was like a dreaming sound in his
ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the
melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of
a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfort-
ably, and turning suddenly in his bed.

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the
afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The
night grew darker and darker ; the stars seemed to sink deeper
in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from
his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was,
moreover, approaching the very place where many of the
scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of the

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 279

road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant
above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a
kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large
enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost
to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected
with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been
taken prisoner hard by ; and was universally known by the
name of Major Andrews tree. The common people regarded
it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of
sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly
fa-om the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told
concerning it.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle ;
he thought his whistle was answered : it was but a blast sweep-
ing sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a
little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in
the midst of the tree ; he paused, and ceased whistling ; but
on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where
the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood
laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — his teeth chattered,
and his knees smote against the saddle : it was but the rubbing
of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about
by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils
lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook
crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly- wooded
glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough
logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream.
On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a
group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-
vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge,
was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the
unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of
those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed
who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a
haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of a schoolboy
who has to pass it alone after dark.

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump ; he
summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half
a score of kicks in the ribs and attempted to dash briskly
across the bridge ; but instead of starting forward, the perverse
old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against
the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay,
jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with

280 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

the contrary foot : it was all in vain ; his steed started, it is
true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road
into a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The school-
master now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling
ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forwards, snuffling and
snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a sud-
denness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head.
Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge
caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of
the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something
huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but
seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster
ready to spring upon the traveller.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with
terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too
late ; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or
goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of
the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he
demanded in stammering accents — "Who are you?" He
received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more
agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he
cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and shutting
his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune.
Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion,
and with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle
of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the
form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained.
He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and
mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no
offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of
the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder,
who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight com-
panion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones
with the galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes
of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his
horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a
walk, thinking to lag behind — the other did the same. His
heart began to sink within him ; he endeavored to resume his
psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his
mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something
in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious compan-
ion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully
accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 281

the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky,
gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-
struck, on perceiving that he was headless ! but his horror was
still more increased, on observing that the head, which should
have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the
pommel of his saddle ! His terror rose to desperation ; he
rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping,
by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip — but
the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they
dashed through thick and thin ; stones flying and sparks flash-
ing at every bound. Ichabod 's flimsy garments fluttered in the
air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's
head, in the eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy
Hollow ; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon,
instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged
headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a
sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile,
where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story ; and just
beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the white-
washed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider
an apparent advantage in the chase ; but just as he had got
half-way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave
way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by
the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and
had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder
round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard
it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the
terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind — for
it was his Sunday saddle ; but this was no time for petty
fears : the goblin was hard on his haunches ; and (unskilful rider
that he was !) he had much ado to maintain his seat ; sometimes
slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes
jolted on the high ridge of his horse's back-bone, with a vio-
lence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that
the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a
silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not
mistaken. He saw the walls of trie church dimly glaring
under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom
Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. " If I can but reach
that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he
heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him ;

282 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convul-
sive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the
bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he gained
the opposite side, and now Ichabod cast a look behind to
see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash
of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in
his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him.
Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too
late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash
— he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder,
the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirl-
wind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his
saddle, and witli the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the
grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appear-
ance at breakfast — dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The
boys assembled at the school-house, and strolled idly about the
banks of the brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper
now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Icha-
bod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after
diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part
of the road leading to the church, was found the saddle
trampled in the dirt ; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented
in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the
bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the
brook, where the water. ran deep and black, was found the hat
of the unfortunate Ichabod, and cFose beside it a shattered
pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster
was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of
his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly
effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half ; two stocks
for the neck ; a pair or two of worsted stockings ; an old pair
of corduroy small-clothes ; a rusty razor ; a book of psalm
tunes full of dog's ears ; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the
books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged to the
community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft,
a New-England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-
telling ; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled
and blotted, in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of
verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic
books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the
flames by Hans Van Ripper ; who, from that time forward,
determined to send his children no more to school ; observing

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 283

that he never knew any good come of this same reading and
writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and
he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he
must have had about his person at the time of his disappear-
ance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church
on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were
collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot
where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of
Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called
to mind, and when they had diligently considered them all, and
compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they
shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, that Ichabod
had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a
bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head
any more about him ; the school was removed to a different
quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his
stead.

It is true, an old farmer who had been down to New- York
on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of
the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelli-
gence that Ichabod Crane was still alive ; that he had left the
neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van
Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly
dismissed by the heiress ; that he had changed his quarters to
a distant part of the country ; had kept school and studied law
at the same time ; had been admitted to the bar ; turned politi-
cian ; electioneered ; written for the newspapers ; and finally,
had been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom
Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, con-
ducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was
observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of
Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at
the mention of the pumpkin ; which led some to suspect that
he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of
these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was spirited
away by supernatural means ; and it is a favorite story often
told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire.
The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious
awe ; and that may be the reason why the road has been altered
of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of
the mill-pond. The school-house, being deserted, soon fell to
decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the

284 THE SKETCH BOOK.

unfortunate pedagogue ; and the plough-boy, loitering home-
ward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at
a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tran-
quil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.

POSTSCRIPT,

FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER

THE preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words in
which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the an-
cient city of Manhattoes,1 at which were present many of its
sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a
pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt
clothes, with a sadly humorous face ; and one whom I strongly
suspected of being poor — he made such efforts to be entertain-
ing. When his story was concluded there was much laughter
and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy alder-
men, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There
was, however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling
eyebrows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face
throughout ; now and then folding his arms, inclining his head,
and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over in
his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but
upon good grounds — when they have reason and the law on
their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had
subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the
elbow of his chair, and sticking the other a-kimbo, demanded,
with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, and
contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story,
and what it went to prove.

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his
lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment,
looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and
lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story
was intended most logically to prove : —

" That there is no situation in life but has its advantages
and pleasures — provided we will but take a joke as we find it :

" That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers, is
likely to have rough riding of it :

" Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of

i New-York.

V ENVOY. 285

a Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the
state."

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after
this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of
the syllogism ; while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt
eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he
observed, that all this was very well, but still he thought the
story a little on the extravagant — there were one or two points
on which he had his doubts :

" P^aith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I
don't believe one-half of it myself."

D. K.

L'ENVOY. '

Go, little booke, God send thee good passage,
And specially let this be thy prayere,
Unto them all that thee will read or hear,
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,
Thee to correct, in any part or all.

— CHAUCER'S Belle Dame sans Mercie.

IN concluding a second volume of the Sketch-Book, the
Author cannot but express his deep sense of the indulgence
with which his first has been received, and of the liberal dis-
position that has been evinced to treat him with kindness as a
stranger. Even the critics, whatever may be said of them by
others, he has found to be a singularly gentle and good-natured
race ; it is true that each has in turn objected to some one or
two articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in the
aggregate, would amount almost to a total condemnation of
his work ; but then he has been consoled by observing, that
what one has particularly censured, another has as particu-
larly praised : and thus, the encomiums being set off against
the objections, he finds his work, upon the whole, commended
far beyond its deserts.

He is aware that he runs a risk of forfeiting much of this
kind favor by not following the counsel that has been liberally
bestowed upon him ; for where abundance of valuable advice
is given gratis, it may seem a man's own fault if he should go
astray. He can only say, in his vindication, that he faithfully
determined, for a time, to govern himself in his second volume

1 Closing the second volume of the London edition.

286 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

by the opinions passed upon his first ; but he was soon brought
to a stand by the contrariety of excellent counsel. One kindly
advised him to avoid the ludicrous ; another, to shun the
pathetic ; a third assured him that he was tolerable at descrip-
tion, but cautioned him to leave narrative alone ; while a fourth
declared that he had a very pretty knack at turning a story,
and was really entertaining when in a pensive mood, but was
grievously mistaken if he imagined himself to possess a spirit
of humor.

Thus perplexed by the advice of his friends, who each in turn
closed some particular path, but left him all the world beside
to range in, he found that to follow all their counsels would, in
fact, be to stand still. He remained for a time sadly embar-
rassed ; when, all at once, the thought struck him to ramble on
as he had begun ; that his work being miscellaneous, and writ-
ten for different humors, it could not be expected that any one
would be pleased with the whole ; but that if it should contain
something to suit each reader, his end would be completely
answered. Few guests sit down to a varied table with an
equal appetite for every dish. One has an elegant horror of a
roasted pig ; another holds a curry or a devil in utter abomina-
tion ; a third cannot tolerate the ancient flavor of venison and
wild fowl ; and a fourth, of truly masculine stomach, looks
with sovereign contempt on those knickknacks, here and there
dished up for the ladies. Thus each article is condemned in
its turn ; and yet, amidst this variety of appetites, seldom does
a dish go away from the table without being tasted and relished
by some one or other of the guests.

With these considerations he ventures to serve up this second
volume in the same heterogeneous way with his first ; simply
requesting the reader, if he should find here and there some-
thing to please him, to rest assured that it was written expressly
for intelligent readers like himself, but entreating him, should
he find any thing to dislike, to tolerate it, as one of those
articles which the Author has been obliged to write for readers
of a less refined taste.

To be serious. — The Author is conscious of the numerous
faults and imperfections of his work ; and well aware how little
he is disciplined and accomplished in the arts of authorship.
His deficiencies are also increased by a diffidence arising from
his peculiar situation. He finds himself writing in a strange
land, and appearing before a public which he has been accus-
tomed, from childhood, to regard with the highest feelings of
awe and reverence. He is full of solicitude to deserve their

VENVOY. 287

approbation, yet finds that very solicitude continually embar-
rassing his powers, and depriving Him of that ease and confi-
dence which are necessary to successful exertion. Still the
kindness with which he is treated encourages him to go on,
hoping that in ti:ne he may acquire a steadier footing ; and
thus he proceeds, half-venturing, half -shrinking, surprised at
his own good fortune, and wondering at his own temerity.

A SUNDAY IN LONDON.1

IN a preceding paper I have spoken of an English Sunday in
the country and its tranquillizing effect upon the landscape ;
but where is its sacred influence more strikingly apparent
than i'n the very heart of that great Babel, London ? On this
sacred day the gigantic monster is charmed into repose. The
intolerable din and struggle of the week are at an end.
The shops are shut. The fires of forges and manufactories
are extinguished, and the sun, no longer obscured by murky
clouds of smoke, pours down a sober yellow radiance into the
quiet streets. The few pedestrians we meet, instead of hurry-
ing forward with anxious countenances, move leisurely along ;
their brows are smoothed from the wrinkles of business and
care ; they have put on their Sunday looks and Sunday man-
ners with their Sunday clothes, and are cleansed in mind as
well as in person.

And now the melodious clangor of bells from church-towers
summons their several flocks to the fold. Forth issues from
his mansion the family of the decent tradesman, the small
children in the advance ; then the citizen and his comely
spouse, followed by the grown-up daughters, with small
morocco-bound prayer-books laid in the folds of their pocket-
handkerchiefs. The house-maid looks after them from the
window, admiring the finery of the family, and receiving,
perhaps, a nod and smile from her young mistresses, at whose
toilet she has assisted.

Now rumbles along the carriage of some magnate of the
city, peradventure an alderman or a sheriff, and now the patter
of many feet announces a procession of charity scholars in
uniforms of antique cut, and each with a prayer-book under
his arm.

1 Part of a sketch omitted in the preceding editions.

288 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

The ringing of bells is at an end ; the rumbling of carriages
has ceased ; the pattering of feet is heard no more ; the flocks
are folded in ancient churches, cramped up in by-lanes and
corners of the crowded city, where the vigilant beadle keeps
watch, like the shepherd's dog, round the threshold of the
sanctuary. For a time everything is hushed, but soon is heard
the deep, pervading sound of the organ, rolling and vibrating
through the empty lanes and courts, and the sweet chanting of
the choir, making them resound with melody and praise.
Never have I been more sensible of the sanctifying effect of
church music than when I have heard it thus poured forth,
like a river of joy, through the inmost recesses of this great
metropolis, elevating it, as it were, from all the sordid pollutions
of the week, and bearing the poor world-worn soul on a tide
of triumphant harmony to heaven.

The morning service is at an end. The streets are again
alive with the congregations returning to their homes, but
soon again relapse into silence. Now comes on the Sunday
dinner, which to the city tradesman is a meal of some impor-
tance. There is more leisure for social enjoyment at the
board. Members of the family can now gather together who
are separated by the laborious occupations of the week. A
schoolboy may be permitted on that day to come to the
paternal home ; an old friend of the family takes his accus-
tomed Sunday seat at the board, tells over his well-known
stories, and rejoices young and old with his well-known jokes.

On Sunday afternoon the city pours forth its legions to
breathe the fresh air and enjoy the sunshine of the parks and
rural environs. Satirists may say what they please about the
rural enjoyments of a London citizen on Sunday, but to me
there is something delightful in beholding the poor prisoner
of the crowded and dusty city enabled thus to come forth
once a week and throw himself upon the green bosom of
Nature. He is like a child restored to the mother's breast,
and they who first spread out these noble parks and magnifi-
cent pleasure-grounds which surround this huge metropolis
have done at least as much for its health and morality as if
they had expended the amount of cost in Hospitals, prisons,
and penitentiaries.

LONDON ANTIQUES. 289

LONDON ANTIQUES.

I do walk

Methinks like Guide Vaux, with my dark lanthorn,
Stealing to set the town o' fire; i' th' country
I should be taken for William o' the Wisp,
Or Robin Goodfellow.

FLETCHER.

I AM somewhat of an antiquity-hunter, and am fond of ex-
ploring London in quest of the relics of old times. These
are principally to be found in the depths of the city, swal-
lowed up and almost lost in a wilderness of brick and mortar,
but deriving poetical and romantic interest from the common-
place, prosaic world around them. I was struck with an in-
stance of the kind in the course of a recent summer ramble
into the city ; for the city is only to be explored to advantage
in summer-time, when free from the smoke and fog and rain
and mud of winter. I had been buffeting for some time
against the current of population setting through Fleet Street.
The warm weather had unstrung my nerves and made me
sensitive to every jar and jostle and discordant sound. The
flesh was weary, the spirit faint, and I was getting out of
humor with the bustling busy throng through which I had to
struggle, when in a fit of desperation I tore my way through
the crowd, plunged into a by-lane, and, after passing through
several obscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaint and
quiet court with a grassplot in the centre overhung by elms,
and kept perpetually fresh and green by a fountain with its
sparkling jet of water. A student with book in hand was
seated on a stone bench, partly reading, partly meditating on
the movements of two or three trim nursery-maids with their
infant charges.

I was like an Arab who had suddenly come upon an oasis
amid the panting sterility of the desert. By degrees the
quiet and coolness of the place soothed my nerves and re-
freshed my spirit. I pursued my walk, and came, hard by, to
a very ancient chapel with a low-browed Saxon portal of
massive and rich architecture. The interior was circular and
lofty and lighted from above. Around were monumental
tombs of ancient date on which were extended the marble
effigies of warriors in armor. Some had the hands devoutly
crossed upon the breast ; others grasped the pommel of the
sword, menacing hostility even in the tomb, while the crossed

290 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

legs of several indicated soldiers of the Faith who had been
on crusades to the Holy Land.

I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars,
strangely situated in the very centre of sordid traffic ; and I
do not know a more impressive lesson for the man of the
world than thus suddenly to turn aside from the highway of
busy money-seeking life, and sit down among these shadowy
sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust, and forgetfulness.

In a subsequent tour of observation I encountered another
of these relics of a " foregone world " locked up in the heart
of the city. I had been wandering for some time through
dull monotonous streets, destitute of anything to strike the
eye or excite the imagination, when I beheld before me a
Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. It opened into a
spacious quadrangle forming the courtyard of a stately Gothic
pile, the portal of which stood invitingly open.

It was apparently a public edifice, and, as I was antiquity-
hunting, I ventured in, though with dubious steps. Meeting
no one either to oppose or rebuke my intrusion, I continued
on until I found myself in a great hall with a lofty arched
roof and oaken gallery, all of Gothic architecture. At one
end of the hall was an enormous fireplace, with wooden settles
on each side ; at the other end was a raised platform, or dais,
the seat of state, above which was the portrait of a man in
antique garb with a long robe, a ruff, and a venerable gray
beard.

The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet and
seclusion, and what gave it a mysterious charm was, that I
had not met with a human being since I had passed the
threshold.

Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess
of a large bow window, which admitted a broad flood of yel-
low sunshine, checkered here and there by tints from panes
of colored glass, while an open casement let in the soft sum-
mer air. Here, leaning my head on my hand and my arm on
an old oaken table, I indulged in a sort of reverie about what
might have been the ancient uses of this edifice. It had evi-
dently been of monastic origin ; perhaps one of those colle-
giate establishments built of yore for the promotion of
learning, where the patient monk, in the ample solitude of the
cloister, added page to page and volume to volume, emulating
in the productions of his brain the magnitude of the pile he
inhabited.

As I was seated in this musing mood a small panelled door

LONDON ANTIQUES. 291

in an arch at the upper end of the hall was opened, and a
number of gray-headed old men, clad in long black cloaks,
came forth one by one, proceeding in that manner through the
hall, without uttering a word, each turning a pale face on me
as he passed, and disappearing through a door at the lower
end.

I was singularly struck with their appearance ; their black
cloaks and antiquated air comported with the style of this
most venerable and mysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts
of the departed years, about which I had been musing, were
passing in review before me. Pleasing myself with such
fancies, I set out, in the spirit of romance, to explore what I
pictured to myself a realm of shadows existing in the very
centre of substantial realities.

My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts
and corridors and dilapidated cloisters, for the main edifice
had many additions and dependencies, built at various times
arid in various styles. In one open space a number of boys,
who evidently belonged to the establishment, were at their
sports, but everywhere I observed those mysterious old gray
men in black mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, sometimes
conversing in groups ; they appeared to be the pervading
genii of the place. I now called to, mind what I had read of
certain colleges in old times, where judicial astrology, geo-
mancy, necromancy, and other forbidden and magical sciences
were taught. Was this an establishment of the kind, and
were these black-cloaked old men really professors of the
black art ?

These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye
glanced into a chamber hung round with all kinds of strange
and uncouth objects — implements of savage warfare, strange
idols, and stuffed alligators ; bottled serpents and monsters
decorated the mantelpiece ; while on the high tester of an old-
fashioned bedstead grinned a human skull, flanked on each
side by a dried cat.

I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic chamber,
which seemed a fitting laboratory for a necromancer, when I
was startled at beholding a human countenance staring at me
from a dusky corner. It was that of a,, small, shrivelled old
man with thin cheeks, bright eyes, and gray, wiry, projecting
eyebrows. I at first doubted whether it were not a mummy
curiously preserved, but it moved, and I saw that it was alive.
It was another of these black-cloaked old men, and, as I re-
garded his quaint physiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the

292 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

hideous and sinister objects by which he was surrounded, I
began to persuade myself that I had come upon the arch-mago
who ruled over this magical fraternity.

Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and invited me to
enter. I obeyed with singular hardihood, for how did I know
whether a wave of his wand might not metamorphose me into
some strange monster, or conjure me into one of the bottles
on his mantelpiece ? He proved, however, to be anything but
a conjurer, and his simple garrulity soon dispelled all the
magic and mystery with which I had enveloped this anti-
quated pile and its no less antiquated inhabitants.

It appeared that I had made my way into the centre of an
ancient asylum for superannuated tradesmen and decayed
householders, with which was connected a school for a limited
number of boys. It was founded upwards of two centuries
since on an old monastic establishment, and retained somewhat
of the conventual air and character. The shadowy line of old
men in black mantles who had passed before me in the hall,
and whom I had elevated into magi, turned out to be the pen-
sioners returning from morning service in the chapel.

John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities whom I had
made the arch-magician, had been for six years a resident of
the place, and had decorated this final nestling-place of his old
age with relics and rarities picked up in the course of his life.
According to his own account, he had been somewhat of a
traveller, having been once in France, and very near making a
visit to Holland. He regretted not having visited the latter
country, " as then he might have said he had been there."
He was evidently a traveller of the simple kind.

He was aristocratical too in his notions, keeping aloof, as I
found from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates
were a blind man who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which
languages Halluin was profoundly ignorant, and a broken-
do wri gentleman who had run through a fortune of forty thou-
sand pounds left him by his father, and ten thousand pounds,
the marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum seemed to
consider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as well as of
lofty spirit to be able to squander such enormous sums.

P. S. The picturesque remnant of old times into which I
have thus beguiled tne reader is what is called the Charter
House, originally the Chartreuse. It was founded in 1611, on
the remains of an ancient convent, by Sir Thomas Sutton, being
one of those noble charities set on foot by individual munifi-
cence, and kept up with the quaintness and sanctity of

LONDON ANTIQUES. 293

ancient times amidst the modern changes and innovations of
London. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seen better
days, are provided in their old age with food, clothing, fuel,
and a yearly allowance for private expenses. They dine to-
gether, as did the monks of old, in the hall which had been
the refectory of the original convent. Attached to the estab-
lishment is a school for forty-four boys.

Stow, whose work I have consulted on the subject, speaking
of the obligations of the gray -headed pensioners, says, "They
are not to intermeddle with any business touching the affairs
of the hospital, but to attend only to the service of God, and
take thankfully what is provided for them, without muttering,
murmuring, or grudging. None to wear weapon, long hair,
colored boots, spurs, or colored shoes, feathers in their hats,
or any ruffian-like or unseemly apparel, but such as becomes
hospital-men to wear." "And in truth," adds Stow, "happy*
are they that are so taken from the cares and sorrows of the
world, and fixed in so good a place as these old men are ;
having nothing to care for. but the good of their souls, to serve
God, and to live in brotherly love."

For the amusement of such as have been interested by the
preceding sketch, taken down from my own observation, and
who may wish to know a little more about the mysteries of
London, I subjoin a modicum of local history put into my
hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a small brown wig
and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I . became acquainted
shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I was
a little dubious at first whether it was not one of those apoc-
ryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring travellers like
myself, and which have brought our general character for
veracity into such unmerited reproach. On making proper
inquiries, however, I have received the most satisfactory
assurances of the author's probity, and indeed have been told
that he is actually engaged in a full and particular account of
the very interesting region in which he resides, of which the
following may be considered merely as a foretaste.1

1 This refers to the article entitled " Little Britain." See page 182.

APPENDIX.

NOTE 1.- POSTSCRIPT TO RIP VAN WINKLE.

following are travelling notes from a memorandum-book of Mr.
Knickerbocker:

The Kaatsberg, or Catskjill Mountains, have always been a region full
of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of spirits, who in-
fluenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds over the landscape
and sending good or bad hunting seasons. They were ruled by an old
squaw spirit, said to be their mother. She dwelt on the highest peak of
the Catskills, and had charge of the doors of day and night to open and
shut them at the proper hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies,
and cut up the old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly pro-
pitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs and morning
dew, and send them off from the crest of the mountain, flake after flake,
like flakes of carded cotton, to- float in the air; until, dissolved by the
heat of the sun, they would fall in gentle showers, causing the grass to
spring, the fruits to ripen, and the corn to grow an inch an hour. If dis-
pleased, however, she would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the
midst of them like a bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web; and
when these clouds broke, woe betide the valleys!

In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of Manitou or
spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the Catskill Mountains, and
took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking all kinds of evils and vexations
upon the red men. Sometimes he would assume ^the form of a bear, a
panther, or a deer, lead the bewildered hunter a * weary chase through
tangled forests and among ragged rocks, and then spring off with a loud
ho! ho! leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice or raging
torrent.

The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a great rock or
cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, from the flowering vines
which clamber about it and the wild flowers which abound in its neigh-
borhood, is known by the name of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of
it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes
basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies, which lie on the sur-
face. This place was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that
the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its precincts. Once
upon a time, however, a hunter who had lost his way penetrated to the
Garden Rock, where he beheld a number of gourds placed in the crotches
of trees. One of these he seized and made off with it, but in the hurry
of his retreat he let it fall among the rocks, when a great stream gushed
forth, which washed him away and swept him down precipices, where he
was dashed to pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, and
continues to flow to the present day, being the identical stream known
by the name of Kaaterskill.

295

296 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

NOTE 2. — NOTES CONCERNING WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Toward the end of the sixth century, when Britain, under the domin-
ion of the Saxons, was in a state of barbarism and idolatry, Pope Gregory
the Great, struck with the beauty of some Anglo-Saxon youths exposed
fdr sale in the market-place at Rome, conceived a fancy for the race, and
determined to send missionaries to preach the gospel among these comely
but benighted islanders. He was encouraged to this by learning that
Ethelbert, king of Kent and the most potent of the Anglo-Saxon princes,
had married Bertha, a Christian princess, only daughter of the king of
Paris, and that she was allowed by stipulation the full exercise of her
religion.

The shrewd pontiff knew the influence of the sex in matters of religious
faith. He forthwith despatched Augustine, a Roman monk, with forty
associates, to the court of Ethelbert at Canterbury, to effect the conver-
sion of the king and to obtain through him a foothold in the island.

Ethelbert received them warily, and held a conference in the open air,
being distrustful of foreign priestcraft and fearful of spells and magic.
They ultimately succeeded in making him as good a Christian as his wife;
the conversion of the king of course produced the conversion of his loyal
subjects. The zeal and success of Augustine were rewarded by his being
made archbishop of Canterbury, and being endowed with authority over
all the British churches.

One of the most prominent converts was Segebert or Sebert, king of the
East Saxons, a nephew of Ethelbert. He reigned at London, of which
Mellitus, one of the Roman monks who had come over with Augustine,
was made bishop.

Sebert in 605, in his religious zeal, founded a monastery by the river-
side to the west of the city, on the ruins of a temple of Apollo, being, in
fact, the origin of the present pile of Westminster Abbey. Great prepa-
rations were made for the consecration of the church, which was to be
dedicated to St. Peter. On the morning of the appointed day Mellitus,
the bishop, proceeded with great pomp and solemnity to perform the
ceremony. On approaching the edifice he was met by a fisherman, who
informed him that it was needless to proceed, as the ceremony was over.
The bishop stared with surprise, when the fisherman went on to relate
that the night before, as he was in his boat on the Thames, St. Peter
appeared to him, and told him that he intended to consecrate the church
himself that very night. The apostle accordingly went into the church,
which suddenly became illuminated. The ceremony was performed in
sumptuous style, accompanied by strains of heavenly music and clouds
of fragrant incense. After this the apostle came into the boat and
ordered the fisherman to cast his net. He did so, and had a miraculous
draught of fishes, one of which he was commanded to present to the
bishop, and to signify to him that the apostle had relieved him from the
necessity of consecrating the church.

Mellitus was a wary man, slow of belief, and required confirmation of
the fisherman's tale. He opened the church doors, and beheld wax
candles, crosses, holy water, oil sprinkled in various places, and various
other traces of a grand ceremonial. If he had still any lingering doubts,
they were completely removed on the fisherman's producing the identical
fish which he had been ordered by the apostle to present to him. To
resist this would have been to resist ocular demonstration. The good
bishop accordingly was convinced that the church had actually been con-

APPENDIX. 297

secrated by St. Peter in person; so he reverently abstained from proceed-
ing further in the business.

The foregoing tradition is said to be the reason why King Edward the
Confessor chose this place as the site of a religious house which he
meant to endow. He pulled down the old church and built another in
its place in 1045. In this his remains were deposited in a magnificent
shrine.

The sacred edifice again underwent modifications, if not a recon-
struction, by Henry III. in 1220, and began to assume its present
appearance.

Under Henry VIII. it lost its conventual character, that monarch
turning the monks away and seizing upon the revenues.

RELICS OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

A curious narrative was printed in 1688 by one of the choristers of the
cathedral, who appears to have been the Paul Pry of the sacred edifice,
giving an account of his rummaging among the bones of Edward the
Confessor, after they had quietly reposed in .their sepulchre upwards of
six hundred years, and of his drawing forth the crucifix and golden chain
of the deceased monarch. During eighteen years that he had officiated
in the choir it had been a common tradition, he says, among his brother-
choristers and the gray-headed servants of the abbey that the body of
King Edward was deposited in a kind of chest or coffin which was indis-
tinctly seen in the upper part of the shrine erected to his memory. None
of the abbey gossips, however, had ventured upon a nearer inspection
until the worthy narrator, to gratify his curiosity, mounted to the coffin
by the aid of a ladder, and found it to be made of wood, apparently very
strong and firm, being secured by bands of iron.

Subsequently, in 1685, on taking down the scaffolding used in the coro-
nation of James II., the coffin was found to be broken, a hole appearing
in the lid, probably made through accident by the workmen. No one
ventured, however, to meddle with the sacred depository of royal dust
until, several weeks afterwards, the circumstance came to the knowledge
of the aforesaid chorister. He forthwith repaired to the abbey in com-
pany with two friends of congenial tastes, who were desirous of inspect-
ing the tombs. Procuring a ladder, he again mounted to the coffin, and
found, as had been represented, a hole in the lia about six inches long
and four inches broad, just in front of the left breast. Thrusting in his
hand and groping among the bones, he drew from underneath the
shoulder a crucifix, richly adorned and enamelled, affixed to a gold chain
twenty-four inches long. These he showed to his inquisitive friends,
who were equally surprised with himself.

" At the time," says he, " when I took the cross and chain out of the
coffin I drew the head to the hole and mewed it, being very sound and
firm, with the upper and nether jaws whole and full of teeth, and a list
of gold above an inch broad, in the nature of a coronet, surrounding the
temples. There was also in the coffin white linen and gold-colored
flowered silk, that looked indifferent fresh; but the least stress put there-
to showed it was wellnigh perished. There were all his bones, and much
dust likewise, which I left as I found."

298 THE SKETCH-BOOK.

It is difficult to conceive a more grotesque lesson to human pride than
the skull of Edward the Confessor thus irreverently pulled about in its
coffin by a prying chorister, and brought to grin face to face with him
through a hole in the lid.

Having satisfied his curiosity, the chorister put the crucifix and chain
back again into the coffin, and sought the dean to apprise him of his dis-
covery. The dean not being accessible at the time, and fearing that the
" holy treasure " might be taken away by other hands, he got a brother-
chorister to accompany him to the shrine about two or three hours after-
wards, and in his presence again drew forth the relics. These he after-
wards delivered on his knees to King James. The king subsequently had
the old coffin enclosed in a new one of great strength, " each plank being
two inches thick and cramped together with large iron wedges, where it
now remains (1688) as a testimony of his pious care, that no abuse might
be offered to the sacred ashes therein reposited."

As the history of this shrine is full of moral, I subjoin a description of
it in modern times. "The solitary and forlorn shrine," says a British
writer, " now stands a mere skeleton of what it was. A few faint traces
of its sparkling decorations inlaid on solid mortar catches the rays of the
sun, forever set on its splendor. . . . Only two of the spiral pillars remain.
The wooden Ionic top is much broken and covered with dust. The mosaic
is picked away in every part within reach; only the lozenges of about a foot
square and five circular pieces of the rich marble remain." — MALCOLM,
Lond. rediv.

INSCRIPTION ON A MONUMENT ALLUDED TO IN
THE SKETCH.

Here lyes the Loyal Duke of Newcastle, and his Dutchess his second
wife, by whom he had no issue. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest
sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble family; for all the brothers
were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous. This Dutchess was a wise,
witty, and learned lady, which her many Bookes do well testify; she was
a most virtuous and loving and careful wife, and was with her lord all
the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home, never
parted from him in his solitary retirements.

In the winter-time, when the days are short, the service in the after-
noon is performed by the light of tapers. The effect is fine of the choir
partially lighted up, while the main body of the cathedral and the tran-
septs are in profound and cavernous darkness. The white dresses of the
choristers gleam amidst the deep brown of the oaken slats and canopies;
the partial illumination makes enormous shadows from columns and
screens, and, darting into the surrounding gloom, catches here and there
upon a sepulchral decoration or monumental effigy. The swelling notes
of the organ accord well with the scene.

When the service is over the dean is lighted to his dwelling, in the old
conventual part of the pile, by the boys of the choir, in their white dresses,
bearing tapers, and the procession passes through the abbey and along

APPENDIX. 299

shadowy cloisters, lighting up angles and arches and grim sepulchral mon-
uments," and leaving all behind in darkness.

On entering the cloisters at night from what is called the Dean's Yard,
the eye, ranging through a dark vaulted passage, catches a distant view
of a white marble figure reclining on a tomb, on which a strong glare
thrown by a gas-light has quite a spectral effect. It is a mural monument
of one of the Pultneys.

The cloisters are well worth visiting by moonlight when the moon is in
the full.

NOTE 3, PAGE 181. — THE CHRISTMAS DINNER.

At the time of the first publication of this paper the picture of an old-
fashioned Christmas in the country was pronounced by some as out of
date. The author had afterwards an opportunity of witnessing almost
all the customs above described, existing in unexpected vigor in the skirts
of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, where he passed the Christmas holidays.
The reader will find some notice of them in the author's account of his
sojourn at Newstead Abbey.

NOTE 4, PAGE 206.- STRATFORD ON AVON.

This effigy is in white marble, and represents the Knight in complete
armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on her tomb is the fol-
lowing inscription ; which, if really composed by her husband, places
him quite above the intellectual level of Master Shallow :

Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sr Thomas Lucy of Charle-
cot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir of Thomas
Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire who departed out
of this wretched world to her heavenly kingdom ye 10 day of February
in ye yeare of our Lord God 1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time
of her lyfe a true and faythful servant of her good God, never detected
of any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her husband
most faythful and true. In friendship most constant; to what in trust
was committed unto her most secret. In wisdom excelling. In govern-
ing of her house, bringing up of youth in ye fear of God that did con-
verse with her moste rare and singular. A great maintayner of hospi-
tality. Greatly esteemed of her betters ; misliked of none unless of the
envyous. When all is spoken that can be saide a woman so garnished
with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be equalled by any.
As shee lived most virtuously so shee died most Godly. Set downe by
him yt best did knowe what hath byn written, to be true.

Thomas Lucye.

THE

CRAYON PAPERS.

BY

WASHINGTON IRVING.

NEW YORK: 46 EAST HTH STKEET.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.

BOSTON : 100 PURCHASE STREET.

THE CRAYON PAPERS.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

MOUNT.IOY 3

THE GR'EAT MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE 38

DON JUAN 65

BKOEK 73

SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 182» 78

AMERICAN RESEARCHES IN ITALY 96

THE TAKING OP THE VEIL 100

THE EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RINGAVOOD 110

THE SEMINOLES 137

THE CONSPIRACY OP NEAMATHLA 142

LETTER FROM GRANADA 148

ABDERAHMAN 153

THE WIDOW'S ORDEAL 171

THE CREOLE VILLAGE . 181

A CONTENTED MAN , 188

THE CEAYON PAPERS.

BY

GEOFFEEY CRAYON, GENT.

MOUNT JOY :

OR SOME PASSAGES OUT OP THE LIFE OF A CASTLE-BUILDER.

I WAS born among romantic scenery, in one of the wildest
parts of the Hudson, which at that time was not so thickly set-
tled as at present. My father was descended from one of the
old Huguenot families, that came over to this country on the
revocation of the edict of Nantz. He lived in a style of easy,
rural independence, on a patrimonial estate that had been for
two or three generations in the family. He was an indolent,
good-natured man, who took the world as it went, and had a
kind of laughing philosophy, that parried all rubs and mishaps,
and served him in the place of wisdom. This was the part of
his character least to my taste ; for I was of an enthusiastic,
excitable temperament, prone to kindle up with new schemes
and projects, and he was apt to dash my sallying enthusiasm by
some unlucky joke ; so that whenever I was in a glow with any
sudden excitement, I stood in mortal dread of his good-humor.

Yet he indulged me in every vagary ; for I was an only son,
and of course a personage of importance in the household. I
had two sisters older than myself, and one younger. The former
were educated at New York, under the eye of a maiden aunt ;
the latter remained at home, and was my cherished playmate,
the companion of my thoughts. We were two imaginative little
beings, of quick susceptibility, and prone to see wonders and
mysteries in everything around us. Scarce had we learned to
read, when our mother made us holiday presents of all the
nursery literature of the day ; which at that time consisted of

3

4 THE CRAYON PAPERS.

little books covered with gilt paper, adorned with " cuts," and
filled with tales of fairies, giants, and enchanters. What
draughts of delightful fiction did we then inhale ! My sister
Sophy was of a soft and tender nature. She would weep over
the woes of the Children in the Wood, or quake at the dark
romance of Blue-Beard, and the terrible mysteries of the blue
chamber. But I was all for enterprise and adventure. I burned
to emulate the deeds of that heroic .prince who delivered the
white cat from her enchantment ; or he of no less royal blood>
and doughty emprise, who broke the charmed slumber of the
Beauty in the Wood !

The house in which we lived was just the kind of place to
foster such propensities. It was a venerable mansion, half villa,
half farmhouse. The oldest part was of stone, with loop-holes
for musketry, having served as a family fortress in the time of
the Indians. To this there had been made various additions,
some of brick, some of wood, according to the exigencies of
the moment ; so that it was full of nooks and crooks, and cham-
bers of all sorts and sizes. It was buried among willows, elms,
and cherry trees, and surrounded with roses and hollyhocks, with
honeysuckle and sweet-brier clambering about every window. A
brood of hereditary pigeons sunned themselves upon the roof ;
hereditary swallows and martins built about the eaves and chim-
neys ; and hereditary bees hummed about the flower-beds.

Under the influence of our story-books every object around
us now assumed a new character, and a charmed interest. The
wild flowers were no longer the mere ornaments of the fields, or
the resorts of the toilful bee ; they were the lurking places of
fairies. We would watch the humming-bird, as it hovered
around the trumpet creeper at our porch, and the butterfly as it
flitted up into the blue air, above the sunny tree tops, and fancy
them some of the tiny beings from fairyland. I would call to
mind all that I had read of Robin Goodfellow and his power of
transformation. Oh, how I envied him that power ! How I
longed to be able to compress my form into utter littleness.; to
ride the bold dragon-fly ; swing on the tall bearded grass ; follow
the ant into his subterraneous habitation, or dive into the caver-
nous depths of the honeysuckle !

While I was yet a mere child I was sent to a daily school,
about two miles distant. The schoolhouse was on the edge of
a wood, close by a brook overhung with birches, alders, and
dwarf willows. We of the school who lived at some distance
came with our dinners put up in little baskets. In the intervals
of school hours we would gather round a spring, under a tuft

MOUNT JOY. 5

of hazel-bushes, and have a kind of picnic ; interchanging the
rustic dainties with which our provident mothers had fitted us
out. Then when our joyous repast was over, and my compan-
ions were disposed for play, I would draw forth one of my cher-
ished story-books, stretch myself on the greensward, and soon
lose myself in its bewitching contents.

I became an oracle among my schoolmates on account of my
superior erudition, and soon imparted to them the contagion of
my infected fancy. Often in the evening, after school hours,
we would sit on the trunk of some fallen tree in the woods, and
vie with each other in telling extravagant stories, until the whip-
poor-will began his nightly moaning, and the fire-Hies sparkled
in the gloom. Then came the perilous journey homeward.
What delight we would take in getting up wanton panics in some
dusky part of the wood ; scampering like frightened deer ; paus-
ing to take breath ; renewing the panic, and scampering off
again, wild with fictitious terror !

Our greatest trial was to pass a dark, lonely pool, covered
with pond-lilies, peopled with bull- frogs and water snakes, and
haunted by two white cranes. Oh ! the terrors of that pond !
How our little hearts would beat as we approached it ; what
fearful glances we would throw around ! And if by chance a
plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang of a bull-frog,
struck our ears, as we stole quietly by — away we sped, nor
paused until completely out of the woods. Then, when I reached
home, what a world of adventures and imaginary terrors would
I have to relate to my sister Sophy !

As I advanced in years, this turn of mind increased upon me,
and became more confirmed. I abandoned myself to the im-
pulses of a romantic imagination, which controlled my studies,
and gave a bias to all my habits. My father observed me con-
tinually with a book in my hand, and satisfied himself that I
was a profound student ; but what were my studies ? Works of
fiction ; tales of chivalry ; voyages of discovery ; travels in the
East ; everything, in short, that partook of adventure and
romance. I well remember with what zest I entered upon that
part of my studies which treated of the heathen mythology, and
particularly of the sylvan deities. Then indeed my school books
became dear to me. The neighborhood was well calculated to
foster the reveries of a mind like mine. It abounded with soli-
tary retreats, wild streams, solemn forests, and silent valleys.
I would ramble about for a whole day with a volume of Ovid's
Metamorphoses in my pocket, and work myself into a kind of
self-delusion, so as to identify the surrounding scenes with those

6 THE CRAYON PAPERS.

of which I had just been reading. I would loiter about a brook
that glided through the shadowy depths of the forest, picturing
it to" myself the haunt of Naiads. I would steal round some
bushy copse that opened upon a glade, as if I expected to come
suddenly upon Diana and her nymphs, or to behold Pan and his
satyrs bounding, with whoop and halloo, through the woodland.
I would throw myself, during the panting heats of a summer
noon, under the shade of some wide-spreading tree, and muse
and dream away the hours, in a state of mental intoxication. I
drank in the very light of day, as nectar, and my soul seemed
to bathe with ecstasy in the deep blue of a summer sky.

In these wanderings, nothing occurred to jar my feelings, or
bring me back to the realities of life. There is a repose in our
mighty forests that gives full scope to the imagination. Now
and then I would hear the distant sound of the wood-cutter's
axe, or the crash of some tree which he had laid low ; but these
noises, echoing along the quiet landscape, could easily be wrought
by fancy into harmony with its illusions. In general, however,
the woody recesses of the neighborhood were peculiarly wild and
unfrequented. I could ramble for a whole day, without coming
upon any traces of cultivation. The partridge of the wood
scarcely seemed to shun my path, and the squirrel, from his nut-
tree, would gaze at me for an instant, with sparkling eye, as if
wondering at the unwonted intrusion.

I cannot help dwelling on this delicious period of my life ;
when as yet I had known no sorrow, nor experienced any world-
ly care. I have since studied much, both of books and men,
and of course have grown too wise to be so easily pleased ; yet
with all my wisdom, I must confess I look back with a secret
feeling of regret to the days of happy ignorance, before I had
begun to be a philosopher.

It must be evident that I was in a hopeful training for one
who was to descend into the arena of life, and wrestle with the
world. The tutor, also, who superintended my studies in the
more advanced stage of my education was just fitted to complete
the fata morgana which was forming in my mind. His name
was Glencoe. He was a pale, melancholy-looking man, about
forty years of age ; a native of Scotland, liberally educated,
and who had devoted himself to the instruction of youth from
taste rather than necessity ; for, as he said, he loved the human
heart, and delighted to study it in its earlier impulses. My two
elder sisters, having returned home from a city boarding-school,

MOUNT JOT. 7

were likewise placed under his care, to direct their reading in
history and belles-lettres.

We all soon became attached to Glencoe. It is true, we were
at first somewhat prepossessed against him. His meagre, pallid
countenance, his broad pronunciation, his inattention to the little
forms of society, and an awkward and embarrassed manner, on
first acquaintance, were much against him ; but we soon discov-
ered that under this unpromising exterior existed the kindest
urbanity of temper ; the warmest sympathies ; the most enthu-
siastic benev61ence. His mind was ingenious and acute. His
reading had been various, but more abstruse than profound ; his
memory was stored, on all subjects, with facts, theories, and
quotations, and crowded with crude materials for thinking.
These, in a moment of excitement, would be, as it were, melted
down, and poured forth in the lava of a heated imagination. At
such moments, the change in the whole man was wonderful. His
meagre form would acquire a dignity and grace ; his long, pale
visage wo'uld flash with a hectic glow ; his eyes would beam with
intense speculation ; and there would be pathetic tones and deep
modulations in his voice, that delighted the ear, and spoke mov-
ingly to the heart.

But what most endeared him to us was the kindness and sym-
pathy with which he entered into all our interests and wishes.
Instead of curbing and checking our young imaginations with
the reins of sober reason, he was a little too apt to catch the
impulse and be hurried away with us. He could not withstand
the excitement of any sally of feeling or fancy, and was prone
to lend heightening tints to the illusive coloring of youthful
anticipations.

Under his guidance my sisters and myself soon entered upon
a more extended range of studies ; but while they wandered,
with delighted minds, through the wide field of history and
belles-lettres, a nobler walk was opened to my superior intel-
lect.

The mind of Glencoe presented a singular mixture of philoso-
phy and poetry. He was fond of metaphysics and prone to
indulge in abstract speculations, though his metaphysics were
somewhat fine spun and fanciful, and his speculations were apt
to partake of what my father most irreverently termed " hum-
bug." For my part, I delighted in them, and the more espe-
cially because they set my father to sleep and completely con-
founded my sisters. I entered with my accustomed eagerness
into this new branch of study. Metaphysics were now my
passion. My sisters attempted to accompany me, but they soon

8 THE CRAYON PAPERS.

faltered, and gave out before they had got half way through
Smith's Theory of the Moral Sentiments. I, however, went on,
exulting in my strength. Glencoe supplied me with books, and
I devoured them with appetite, if not digestion. We walked
and talked together under the trees before the house, or sat
apart, like Milton's angels, and held high converse upon themes
beyond the grasp of ordinary intellects. Glencoe possessed a
kind of philosophic chivalry, in imitation of the old peripatetic
sages, and was continually dreaming of romantic enterprises in
morals, and splendid systems for the improvement of society.
He had a fanciful mode of illustrating abstract subjects, pecul-
iarly to my taste ; clothing them with the language of poetry,
and throwing round them almost the magic hues of fiction.
"How charming," thought I, "is divine philosophy;" not
harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,

" But a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns."

I felt a wonderful self-complacency at being on such excel-
lent terms with a man whom I considered on a parallel with the
sages of antiquity, and looked down with a sentiment of pity on
the feebler intellects of my sisters, who could comprehend noth-
ing of metaphysics. It is true, when I attempted to study them
by myself, I was apt to get in a fog ; but when Glencoe came
to my aid, every thing was soon as clear to me as day. My ear
drank in the beauty of his words ; my imagination was dazzled
with the splendor of his illustrations. It caught up the spar-
kling sands of poetry that glittered through his speculations, and
mistook them for the golden ore of wisdom. Struck with the
facility with which I seemed to imbibe and relish the most
abstract doctrines, I conceived a still higher opinion of my
mental powers, and was convinced that I also was a philosopher,

I was now verging toward man's estate, and though my edu-
cation had been extremely irregular — following the caprices of
my humor, which I mis